The Seventeen Sensationals

There are certain things in life of which we have no control.  One of these is the family we are born into.  Creating a beautiful tapestry we are unable to fully appreciate, 

God designs families and fills them with a variety of individuals.  

In His marvelous design, some families are large and some are small.  

Some families are tight-knit and some experience icy estrangement.  And more accurately, 

all families are a little bit of all of this.

I was placed in a family with lots of extensions.  Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, second and third cousins and beyond, 

all filled my life as I was growing up in a small community in Southern Illinois.  

With no reservation on the part of any, 

we were tied together by our lineage and our love for each other.

On one side of my family I was one of seventeen grandchildren.  In fact, I think I was born number 13.  

We are cousins.  

We are those who bumped our way down grandma and grandpa's stairway over and over again.  

We are those who played in grandpa's garage and danced on top of his deep freeze.  

We are those who discovered, named and inhabited the small island, Hooterville.

We are alike and we are different.  

We grew up laughing, squabbling, playing, talking, crying.  

And one day we were all grown up; some married, some not.  

Some with children, some without.  

Some remain in the same community we grew up in and some have moved far away.  

But we remain tied together.

A little over two years ago, our family gathered in our hometown to lay one of our beloved aunts to rest.  

It's times like these that I realize the connection we share.  

We are seventeen.  

We are all sensational individuals, but we are part of a group larger than ourselves.  

Each of us has a special place in this community of cousins.  

Even those who were not able to attend the funeral were remembered as part of the larger group.  

Sadly for our family, several years ago, God called one of us home.  

And this summer we said goodbye to another of the sensational seventeen.  

But we remain cousins.

We remain seventeen. 

And we are sensational.

Paul, Carl, Tany, Jeff, Jill, Beth, Debbie, Cheryl, Katie, 

Susie, Allen, Eric,

Jamie, Linda, Tony, Terha and Tim