A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Parker has three cousins, two aunts and two uncles on my side of the family. At just over eight months of age, he had yet to meet his cousins and since his first week of life he had never been held by his aunts nor his uncles.

Before Parker was born, every Sunday evening my whole family would congregate at my parents home where my mother would make enough food to feed an army of the hungriest soldiers. During a very busy week, it was the only time that we could guarantee that we would all get to spend some quality time together. My sister and brother would bring over their children and we would all eat and discuss everything that had been happening in our lives over the past week.

Since Parker was diagnosed with this disease our visits to my parents on Sunday evenings have been extremely infrequent and to an extent non-existent. When we do go, our visits are short and our contact with our nephews consist of us talking to them from several feet away. When we do attend a family gathering, we unfortunately have to leave our son at home with his Nana and Granddad so that he remain in a controlled germ-free environment.

Yesterday, we decided to drop by the weekly gathering at my parents home with Parker to grab some food for ourselves that we may take home to eat. When we arrived, I quickly made my way into the house to get food for the two of us as my wife and my son stayed inside the car. When I informed my family that their nephew was in the car, they gathered up Parker's cousins and went outside to see him. When I finished getting our dinner, I went outside to witness the following. Parker's cousins were crawling over our car so that they could get a better view of my son through one of the windows. As I stood there on the veranda watching my family interact with my son in this manner I was reminded of what is truly important in life.