Jen's Character Arc : "Lovin Arizona" reunion 2014

Only Half of the Lovin crew… we lost a few in Sedona...

Over this last weekend the Lovin descended on us here in Arizona. We have reunions every two years. Due to my mother’s declining health we decided to have this year’s reunion here at home.

My family is not your ordinary run of the mill family. My parents have eleven, yes eleven kids…eight boys and three girls. The order is… a daughter first then eight boys followed by two more girls. I was the lucky girl born after EIGHT boys. To say I was a tomboy is an understatement. Having siblings so much older than you is an odd thing. My nieces, who were close to my age, seemed more like siblings than my older siblings did. It felt more like I had five dads than one dad and four much older brothers. As a teenager I was a bit of a handful, and I didn’t appreciate my surrogate fathers very much. Now, years later, I look back and I am so grateful for brothers who cared enough to lecture me.

Our family at times feels like two families. Because my brothers, who were number six and seven have passed away there is a bit of an age difference between the first group of 1-5 and the second group of 8-11. We call it family one and two.

This weekend, as the 60ish Lovins (only half of our number) crowded restaurants and national parks, those two families seemed to merge back into one. I don’t know if it was because age no longer really matters after you’re 30, or if it was because of the genuine love we feel for each other. Whatever the reason, as the weekend came to a close, tears came to my eyes.

This weekend was crazy! I mean crazy. All bazillion of us drove up to my mother’s childhood home of Jerome, (a very cool haunted sort of old mining town), then we drove over to enjoy the beauty that is Sedona. For some reason I ended up being in charge of this day. Directing Lovins is sort of like herding cats. Cats you love, but cats that like to scatter in different directions. By the end of the day we only lost two families, I considered that pretty good consider how many of us there were.

Yes, Sedona is really that beautiful.

There is something about cousins...

Sunday was a tough day. I am not going to lie. We started the day with a few goodbyes, then the remainder of us gathered for a meeting to discuss my parent’s health and their wills. I was a bit of a wreck leading up to this. My parents are at the age where it needed to be done, but boy, I wish I was anywhere else but in that living room.

I really do have the most amazing parents. I know that this is why my siblings are such kind, supportive people. My mom was forty when she had me, forty! Then forty-five when she had my little sister. She has been through a tremendous amount of trials in her life, and it breaks my heart that after everything she has to end it suffering from Alzheimer’s. It isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair, and bad things do happen to good people. I don’t know what she would do without my dad. He is the sweetest most loving man I have ever known. The way he takes care of her is so beautiful. Them together is a beautiful thing.

After “the meeting” we watched old videos, again more tears, then we sat around the piano and sang like the old days. Slowly all of the out of towners left and now we are back to normal here at the William’s household.