{"id":917,"date":"2010-01-05T01:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T01:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beltdrivebetty.com\/wyzwmnsworld\/?p=917"},"modified":"2010-09-29T18:24:48","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T01:24:48","slug":"the-grace-and-the-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/?p=917","title":{"rendered":"the Grace and the Glory…"},"content":{"rendered":"

as a child<\/span>
there is a certain<\/span>
kind of grace and glory<\/span>
that comes from being raised<\/span>
in a huge extended family<\/span><\/p>\n

with a large family<\/span>
there’s always someone<\/span>
to play with<\/span><\/p>\n

with a large family<\/span>
there’s always someone else<\/span>
in trouble for it<\/span>
cos there’s always someone else<\/span>
to blame for it<\/span><\/p>\n

with a large family<\/span>
there\u2019s always something<\/span>
to be learned<\/span><\/p>\n

with a large family<\/span>
there’s always someone<\/span>
to listen<\/span><\/p>\n

with a large family<\/span>
there’s always someone<\/span>
to love<\/span><\/p>\n

and mostly with a large family<\/span>
there’s always someone<\/span>
to love you<\/span><\/p>\n

as an adult<\/span>
this business of<\/span>
being from a large family<\/span>
gets harder and harder.<\/span><\/p>\n

I ache for my cousin and his family<\/span>
if I feel this bad<\/span>
how must they feel?<\/span>
how must the grandmother<\/span>
and current reigning matriarch<\/span>
of this big family feel?<\/span>
his partner? his brother? <\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder<\/span>
does the next generation<\/span>
know what grace and glory there is<\/span>
in having more cousins<\/span>
than you know what to do with?<\/span><\/p>\n

does the next generation understand<\/span>
the network<\/span>
of love and trust and respect<\/span>
that has allowed me to<\/span>
make the mistakes I made?<\/span>
to learn the lessons I needed?<\/span>
to love and support me<\/span>
even when they didn’t?<\/span>
to give me the tools <\/span>
and the understandings I needed<\/span>
to be me?<\/span><\/p>\n

the me that everyone else knows…<\/span>
the me that is still a work in progress?<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder<\/span>
if they are connected<\/span>
like we were?<\/span><\/p>\n

seems hard to imagine they may be<\/span>
with us all over the country <\/span>
the way we are….<\/span>
and somehow<\/span>
connecting on FB<\/span>
or via the internet<\/span>
is good<\/span>
but not good enough…
<\/span>
because if they are not…<\/p>\n

how will they ever
build the connections
the visceral
tangible
connections
that we did
as children
that keep me connected
all these miles away?
<\/span>
how can they ever really understand<\/span>
the grace and the glory that comes<\/span>
from being raised<\/span>
in a family this large?<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span>
<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

as a child there is a certain kind of grace and glory that comes from being raised in a huge extended family with a large family there’s always someone to play with with a large family there’s always someone else … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4070,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions\/4070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyzwmn9444.live-website.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}