America, January 5, 1999
Family is Always First
All my sisters and me, we are family!
When I lived in Florida, I would write to my extended family on occasion. Sometimes they would write me back, and we would correspond for a while. Over time, our conversations would die out either when one party moved and a address was lost, or when the topic of the first letter was exhausted. I have to admit that I was not the best correspondent then. When I went away to college, I learned how to write a bit more often, sending letters to all the interesting people I met during my travels. I still didn't write my family all that much, though I did keep in touch through the family grapevine.
This adventure has really brought my family out of the woodwork, and amazed
me in the quality and quantity of correspondence I can have with them. I
received letters from relatives I had written in the past, but who had never
written me before. I also wrote to realities who I had never written
before too. I think that is ne of the great legacies of the Peace Corps
experience, that I did something so exciting, my relatives deemed it necessary
to write. I hope, now that I am not in the program any more, that living
in Russia will keep them interested.
Sean, the "lost" cousin, in Australia today.
This web site has also played a big role in getting my relatives connected. The site was one of the reasons one of my uncles decided to get connected to the internet, and I regained contact with a "lost" cousin in Australia too. I am trying to convince another uncle to get a internet account, and I am researching other members of my family for connections. I try to send out a weekly email to all my friends and family, updating them on my life and circulating news, which usually winds up here as some sort of new page. I will try to spend a bit of time this winter writing letters to all the people who do not have email and I hope to start a bit of a postal equivalent of the email chain I have now.
I am happy, though a bit perplexed ,that I had to travel to the other side of the world to bring my family closer together.