Lost and Found

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Families are funny things - amazingly complex, each unique in its relationships, ever changing over time. With my fairly regular trips to the July reunion/birthday celebrations over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to re-connect with long lost cousins, to get to know the "quiet" spouses , and to discover to my surprise that I feel quite a bond to the rich Iowa farm land that has been a part of our family since the 1880's.

This year, according to my sister, Chris, "It was a rare and wonderful twist of the universe------that opened up this time for the three of us to be together." I found that a very poetic way of saying that my mother, sister and I got to spend some time together. My sister and I had somehow lost each other the past few years - I don't think either one of us was sure how it happened and it left a huge hole in our psyches. So a couple of days at my home in Illinois, an absolutely rolicking 9 hours in the car driving back to my mom's in Iowa, and another day together before I had to start back and I feel like the lost is found. I don't plan to lose it again.

Mom, Chris and Barbara in Tucson in 1999.

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