From guest blogger and Marquita’s daugther, Michal Jones
______________
“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” so the saying goes. Tonight I am nearing the end of a visit with my family that feels too short (don’t they always?), but am in deep gratitude and appreciation that I was able to take it. One of the sacrifices I made when choosing the graduate program that was best for me was that I would be far away from my family – one that I did not expect would be as difficult as it has been. I have always been very close to my mother in particular, and was missing her sorely as the quarter comes to a close and I head to California for my summer internship. The notion that I would not be able to see her until December at the earliest seemed difficult to swallow.
We made the decision for me to come visit fairly quickly and close to the trip date – and I cringed as looked up the cost of airline tickets (expensive for the Memorial Day weekend) from Seattle to Washington, DC. Had my aunt not purchased the ticket herself, it would have been much more of a struggle for me to come out than it had been. It is with her generosity, and the myriad acts of kindness that my family has routinely demonstrated, that I’m reminded how much I am loved and supported. This is a message that sometimes I forget in Seattle. Although I have a “family of kin” so to speak – close friends, supportive colleagues, a partner, etc. – sometimes, a kid just needs her mama!
This weekend began a mixture of mellow nights at home with my mama as I typed away at my graduate project and she typed away at her gratitude blog – this blog! The rest was filled with cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts, and of course our four-legged canine friends. Perhaps there was nothing extraordinary about this coming together – we mostly ate, talked, lazed, and laughed – things I could easily do back home in Seattle. But the difference was the amount of effortless love I felt and feel whenever we are able to come together. Our family is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we do the best we can to make sure we are loving one another and treating one another respectfully.
I often take this support for granted because it does not feel in my immediate grasp when I’m a world away, but I am reminded that I have a web of support that would pick up the phone and answer whenever I call. And that, my friends, is enough to get me through most anything.
