Peace & Love all over the place

There was peace and love just coming out our ears. Seriously. Yesterday, Thanksgiving, was a wonderful day. It could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't. I was really happy.

First of all, I don't care how old you are, divorce in a family is going to screw things up. I'm sure there are some parents that need to be gotten rid of, but in my case, it's been terribly inconvenient for me and my siblings. Divorce fractures relationships, divides families at holidays, and otherwise just leaves somebody out in the cold, no matter what. Except for yesterday when our humble gathering included the following:

My biological mother. My biological father. My stepfather I call Dad. My sister from my Mom and Dad (Stepdad) who was adopted and is a Sioux Indian. Three half brothers, two of their wives and one new girlfriend (Miss Alaska). Two nieces from my brother's first marriage. Two nieces whose parents are still married and one cute little three-year-old nephew who was driving his harried mother crazy. We couldn't understand why, he seemed perfectly normal to us.

Then my husband, who was raised in a very normal, All-American home with two married parents had his Mom and Dad here, plus his 90-year-old grandmother, and a his uncle Wayne, who is blind. Oh, and then there were our kids: Mary, from my first marriage, and Catherine and Caroline from my current and last marriage.

While all this was going on I was texting with my former husband's current wife who I went to high school with about Mary going to visit them and the arrangements for that since he is very ill and not doing well at all. I had to keep making stops in between to say a prayer for the poor guy. We have a lot to be thankful for this year, starting with that he's even alive. We also have to be thankful for the fact that if the two of us were talking and texting, it's proof that God is alive and at work in our big old extended dysfunctional family.

So today my other brother Clay came to see Dad, who's visiting from Arizona, and brought his precious one-year-old little boy named Pius, and his other son, who is actually from his wife Heidi's first marriage. Does anyone have a headache?

Amazingly, everybody got along just fine. A good time was had by all. The best thing about it all is that all my parents were in the same place at the same time for the first time since our wedding. And I didn't feel stretched or fractured. I wasn't even stressed. What a blessing.