The 10-Hour Family Reunion ⏱️

This week my three kids came to town. Not together. Of course not. Staggered arrivals, staggered departures. All three of them in the same place for exactly ten hours.

This was Miami where two of them were born, where I used to live, where everyone we've ever known still lives. Cousins who are basically siblings. Lifelong friends. New friends. People who love them and want time with them.

And that's where the anxiety creeps in. When everyone wants a piece of the same few days, it stops feeling like vacation and starts feeling like a schedule.

I remember that pressure from my own childhood. Coming back to the home I grew up in, trying to see everyone, leaving more exhausted than when I arrived. Sometimes I wouldn't even tell anyone I was in town.

So with my own adult kids, I don't do that to them. What do they want? The beach. Family jigsaw puzzle time. Their grandmother. Rinse and repeat. I say yes. Always yes.

But this trip had everything: a wedding, a funeral, an emotional goodbye before cancer treatment, a long-lost relative. Every minute full. Every emotion represented.

And still my kids showed up. Even to the wake, which I'm pretty sure was not part of their travel plans.

I could focus on the chaos. The Miami traffic. The ten hours that felt like both too much and not enough. But this isn't that story.

This is gratitude. I have kids people genuinely want to see. Kids who show up for us, for the people we love, for the moments that matter. I know it won't always be this way. Lives move in different directions.

But right now I'm thinking about those ten overlapping hours. The full house. Too many emotions. Too many people. And somehow this feels like the good old days are happening right now.