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family reunion july 2013. bayside, california

i've never been so emotional going home. i couldn't hug my grandma without tearing up thinking of how fragile life is, how quickly it goes by and how frivolously i take my agile body for granted.
i took this journey, just me and my wee ones; two long days of driving there and a long train ride on the way home. i can't explain the way family permeates my existence. though i'm often fooled into believing the contrary, no man is an island; i may traverse the life of young motherhood alone in some way but there isn't one fraction of my body, mind and spirit that isn't powered, buoyed and sustained by  those i deeply love. the tears of my mother, the laughter of my father, the soft fortitude of my grandmother, the vibrance of my sisters; words and photos don't wrap their arms around you, whisk you off on grand adventures or whisper words of comfort through wet eyes. but family does and i thank god for that.