You don't know what you've got until...

Have you ever heard that saying, you don't know what you've got until it's gone? That's one of the truest statements I've ever heard. We take for granted the people we have in our lives, and all the little things those people do for us.

I have a huge family on my mom’s side. My mom is 1 of 9. She has 6 sisters and 2 brothers. Each one of my mom’s brothers and sisters has at least 2 children, and my mom and her younger sister are the only ones without grandchildren. We’ve recently counted all of the kids and grandkids; I think it was roughly around 50.
(I just realized that sounds like a complicated math problem, but don't worry I wont make you all do the math!)

It can be easy to take that many people for granted. Sometimes I don’t realize how lucky I am to be blessed with so many family members. Not only do I have that many cousins, but most of us stay in contact with each other, even if it’s just on the internet.

Family is the absolute most important thing to us.

My grandpa always reminded us that we couldn’t pick our family, but when all else failed you always had your family. My grandpa was the heart of our family. He was the most handsome man I’ve ever met. He was well into his seventies with a full head of blonde hair. He never spared an opportunity to remind us that our good looks came from him. I think a lot of us took his wit and charm for granted, I know I did. He passed away last January unexpectedly. About a week after his passing my uncle lost his wife unexpectedly as well. It was a hard time for our family, but we all stuck together.

I think that situations like those make us more appreciative of each other. But, isn’t it a shame that as humans something bad has to happen before we realize what we have? We have to lose someone or something just to realize that it was one of the most vital things to us. This was on my mind a lot this week, especially since my granny was airlifted to Little Rock and put on a ventilator. Luckily she seems to be doing better. However I know this opened my families eyes that we need to visit more often, and let her know we care while we still can.

When I worked in the nursing home it broke my heart when residents’ children only came to visit every few months. Things change in the blink of an eye, and you have to use your time wisely.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to realize that you have someone in your life that needs to be shown they’re appreciated. Use every day to show the people in your life how much they mean to you.