family-relationships

I think we should wean Grandma.

If you should choose to look at those files, you will have to live with the consequences of your choices while, at the same time, being mindful that these choices will not only effect you, but will also infect, sorry, I intended to say effect, our entire family.

If we're to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon jagged bits of rock.

A family is like medicine." She twisted her lips into a sardonic smile. "Best in small doses.

Your Barney?_ Cole__ eyebrows shot up. __ours?___e__ mine all right!_ Claire replied. __veryone in this family belongs to everyone else _ belongs with everyone else, rather. I__e looked after him for a year now _ ironed his shirts, made his school lunches, told him stories. I made that dressing gown he__ wearing, whereas no one knew you were alive this time last week. But what matters most is that he wants to be ours and he doesn__ want to be yours. That__ what counts.

However hard and however long we love someone who has died, they can never love us back. At least that is how it feels...

There are things you forget naturally-computer passwords, your father's continuing relationship with life-and then there are things you can't forget that you wish you could.

What about Danny Thomas?" Uncle Hal asks. "What happened to him?"Dead," Uncle Abdelhafiz says. "Nice Lebanese boy.""Never mind about Danny Thomas, look what happened to your whole family! Look at your cousin Farouq, Great Uncle Ziad, Auntie Seena and Jimmy's son Jalal," Aunt Jean cuts in disapprovingly."Dead, dead, dead, and in jail.

Life is filled with rhythms-day and night, hot and cold, summer and winter, spring and fall, cloudy and clear. Likewise in a relationship, men and women have their own rhythms and cycles.

Now and adult, allowed a glimpse of these first cracks in my family's perfect surface, I couldn't help but wonder what else I didn't understand about us all.p 60

I could feel the hard part of Mom very strongly that time. It was like a stone in her that grew bigger every time my father lost his temper, right under her heart. Feeling the stone in her calmed me down. It told me that she would always be there for me.

Holy crap, Caleb! You're my uncle." Nick"No!" Caleb"It's worse. He's the half-brother of your great-grandfather." Kody"You're not helping." Caleb"No, but I'm entertaining myself at your adorable expense." Kody"Yeah, y'all are missing the important fact. To a Cajun, that makes him my uncle." Nick"Great. I always wanted to be a monkey's uncle. Nice to know I finally succeeded." Caleb

In my family strange is relative.

You're my daughter. I don't care about the factions.

Diplomacy is an art of tackling our enemies. Using diplomacy on dear ones, in order to make measurable gains, is just like using a sword in place of a needle. We will be left bare very soon, and visibly so.

You can__ forget how important coming together is, whether it be a mom and a son, a dad and a daughter, whether the family be ten people, or twenty people, or a million people. Dinnertime is the perfect time for that. Dinnertime is the perfect time when you can sit down, you can offer thanks to your kids for making you laugh, or to your parents for supporting you, or to a god for looking out for you, or to whomever you want. You can just close your eyes and open them again and realize that you have the opportunity everyday to change your life, or change someone else__. Dinnertime is a great time to think about that. ~ Dillon, age 22 From Dinnertimes: Stories of American Life, 1912 to 2012

Family: a foundation! Family: a __loth_ that keeps the __ody_!

I tried to teach them [his sons] that about the importance of self-discipline, and that the culture of yes is built on a foundation of no.