Our family is small. HH’s parents are gone. So are mine. I have two sisters…sorry, one now…I’m not used to saying that. My younger sister died a little over a week ago. Neither of them married. HH has one brother. He married, but he and Stephen had no children before they separated. We have two daughters, but my younger and her husband decided against children, too. My older has two boys, grown now, and one of them recently married. But that’s it. If we have a “big” family get-together, there are only eight people.
My aunts and uncles are all gone. So are HH’s. We have cousins scattered somewhere but haven’t kept in touch. At my grandson’s wedding, the “groom’s” side of the room was filled with lots of family friends, but hardly any family. We shake our heads once in a while at our puny size, but we make up for it in how much we care about each other.
When HH and I first got married, it was easy to fill our house with over twenty people with our parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not any more. But in the books I write, families are important cores of the stories, even if in Muddy River, “families” are supernaturals who came together to escape being hunted and bonded to protect themselves.
Jazzi, in her series, invites her family and a few chosen friends to her house every Sunday for a family meal. Each week, they get together to stay in touch and catch up on each others’ lives. When HH and I first got married, my dad insisted that we take turns cooking suppers with them every Thursday night. Mom cooked one week. I cooked the next. He told us that if we didn’t, it got easier and easier to drift apart. We were happy to see Mom and Dad and my two sisters every Thursday. The only problem? I’d never learned to cook. I had to plan ahead when it was my turn so that they’d have something edible.
Both sides of my family had reunions once a year. So did one side of HH’s family. We met uncles and aunts we only slightly knew and cousins we only talked to occasionally. There are no more reunions for either of us. Not any of my friends attend any either. Maybe reunions got too hard to do when families moved farther and farther apart.
In my Lux series, Lux was an only child, and she lost both of her parents soon after she graduated from college. But the Johnson family “adopted” her, and she grew so close to them that she moved to Summit City when the four oldest Johnson siblings moved there. They’re the family she never had. In the second Lux book that I’m working on now, even her beloved Cook moves to be close to her.
Family isn’t always the people who share your bloodline. Sometimes, when you move to a new city, they’re the people who share your heart. In all three of my new series, family plays a big part in the storylines. Probably because it’s so important to me. What about you? Are you close to your families? Do you still have reunions?
Whatever you’re working on, happy writing!
Judi Lynn 
Judi, I am so sorry to hear of your loss. My family is small – I have one brother, my parents are deceased as are my in-laws. Never had children. My husband has two sisters. But like you, so many of my family have passed on. We used to have family reunions and I have fond memories of those times and I miss them.
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Thanks, Joan. It was a blessing for Patty to pass. Small families can be really close. I miss family reunions, too, but I’m wondering if they’re a thing of the past.
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My family is super close but we’re small. Both of my parents are gone, along with all of my aunts and uncles on both sides, except two. We do get-togethers many times a year.
On the flip-side, I have cousins on my dad’s side whom I never knew existed until several years ago. We connected through a strange series of events, and now we have a reunion every year, What makes it extra special is that my dad’s brother vanished in the 1940s. He never saw him again or knew what became of him. Now, all these years later, the children of that brother, along with me, and my siblings celebrate a reunion every year.
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I think it’s so awesome that you connected with people you didn’t know existed. How many times does that happen? It’s wonderful you get together once a year! What a happy coincidence.
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I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of your sister, judy. my family is pretty small, but I started my own with 3 daughters and sons-in-law, and 6 grandies.
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Oh, wow! Your get togethers have to be a time of joy. There’s nothing more wonderful than grandies. And daughters are pretty special.
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“Family” is important, and your blog speaks to that subject beautifully.
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Thanks, Rachel. Hope you had a nice day with your son yesterday.
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We’re quite similar on the family front. My grandparents came from large families. When we got together, everyone came and we’d have groups around fifty or sixty. This included great aunts and uncles, their children, grandchildren, etc. As the elders have died off, we lost track of subsequent generations. Now we’re lucky to pull together a dining room full of people. Moving to Idaho really didn’t help either. My closest relations are all in Nevada. Including this in your fiction is a great way of writing what you know. Sorry about your recent loss.
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Maybe going from large family gatherings to small ones is more common than I thought. I thought we were the exceptions, but maybe not. Who knew?
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