Love Note To My Family

When people ask me how many kids are in my family, I tell them I have two brothers, but am really the oldest of eight.  You see, my grandparents raised their daughters to be very close, and in turn, their children were also raised to be close.  There are a total of eight grandchildren, and in many ways we are more like siblings raised in different houses than cousins.  We are five girls and three boys, and each of us was the baby at some point.  We range in age from 36 to 18, and speak to each other, either in person, on the phone or via facebook often.  They are some of my favorite people in the world.
When we were younger, our moms took us to whatever photo studio a) they had a coupon for and b) would be willing to take on a group photo of this crazy bunch and gave it to our grandparents as a Christmas gift.  We stopped when I was around 20, and Bridget (the baby) was around 2.  The next year, I was about to be a mom myself, and our mothers were probably tired of hearing me whine about having to find something green to wear to match whichever of the little girls fit into the green velvet dress that had been worn by all of us.  I had this thought that since I was the oldest, maybe the littler ones should dress to match me...
This Thanksgiving, we crowded into my brother's garage and re-created that picture, including making Bridget sit on my lap.  My brother and his wife printed the picture and framed and wrapped it for our moms for Christmas.  Needless to say, it was a huge hit.  The day after Christmas, my Aunt Nancy called to let me know how special it was to her and how she loves that we all really DO both love and like each other.
The thing is, I don't think any of us realize how incredibly special the bond we have is.  Because to us, that is just normal.  We forget that some people barely know their cousins, much less have actual relationships with them.  Taking that silly picture in the garage was actually FUN.  We told the younger kids what brats we were, and how difficult we would be.  We remembered the year my aunt assumed the picture would be from the waist up and dressed Colleen and Megan in beautiful sweaters and mismatched stretch pants, only for all the pictures to be full length.  Or the time Erin had a tantrum and was crying so hard we really thought she puked down my back.  And the year Aunt Nancy fought the face off the studio to make them accept her coupon (she was right, by the way).  To make it worse, that year, they cut the very tops of both of my brother's heads off in the pictures.
So thank you to my crazy family for giving us the kind of bond you can totally take for granted.  Thank you for raising us to just know that we are both loved and liked.  Thank you for our shared humor, our love of matching Irish sweaters and our shared history.  Because really, we don't take it for granted at all.