Friends VS. Family

I have been distracted and stumped ever since my last post.   Distracted because I have been busy with health issues and doctors appointments, and also the fact that we have gotten a new to us dog, who is the most precious little thing I have ever known.  There cannot be any comparison between ever between Whisky (our previous dog) and Spencer.  They are just two totally different dogs in absolutely every way you can imagine.  But now that things have died down a little, I can get back into blogging.

Anyway my topic today is family vs. friends.  Someone had brought to my attention that she had forgotten that people who live a long distance away can be closer than people who are considered friends, or even family for that matter can be closer than friends or family who live in your own home town where you reside.  Sadly, that can't ring more truer than anything else in the whole world.  

I come from a large-ish family, my father was born with 11 siblings, 3 sisters and 8 brothers.  My mother has 4 siblings, 2 brothers and 2 sisters.  And in my own immediate family, I have 3 siblings, all brothers making me the only girl of the family.  Naturally, all of my aunts and uncles have children, and they children, and some of them even have children.  But, of course we are all spread out all over the country side so that makes us all a little distant from each other.  Some are close emotionally, but many are not.  Which is very sad, indeed.  

On a more positive note, because of Facebook, I have been able to add many of my cousins, aunts, and uncles and I have been able to see their photos and what they have been up to.  I ended up creating a family group in Facebook, when I first did that, it went viral...everyone was so happy that it was there, but it has died off since, but people still post photos of their family, and what they have been up to, so at least I get to get that news.

As far as friends are concerned, when Abby and I first got together, we had about 20-30 friends each.  We ended up inviting about 200 people to our wedding, and approximately 120 showed up.  So hard to believe that was 12 years ago. Anyway that number of friends and family have considerably dropped since we have been together that long, and especially since we have been living in Northern Ontario for the last 3 years.  It has been unfortunately more noticeable especially in the last year.

However there are a few people who have remained close and we love them and value their friendship with all of our hearts.  There are also the people who I call my extended family, you all know who you are, at least I would hope so because I have been calling the people/artists that I have been trading with over the last 8 years my sisters-in-art....and even though most of you live so far away some even in Australia...I consider you closer to me than many of my own family and friends in my neck of the world.  Even though sometimes I wish we were all neighbours, can you imagine the fun we would have, and all of the amazing hugs we would get?

I thought, that this was kind of important to share.  There are a lot of estranged families out there, and it doesn't have to be that way because of today's technology of computers,  laptops, tablets, cell phones, Skype, Zoom and Google maps (+ many others) makes it so easy for any of us get closer to those people that matter and to those people who are not so disposable.

Thank you Cheryl for bringing this to my attention.  I think its an important message to get across to everyone.

ciao