A Beautiful Weekend That Made Us Nervous

You know those times when all your friends or all your family decide it’s a good time to get together, even though all the signs suggest this is the worst time imaginable, but you feel a duty and a responsibility to show up? That was this particular trip to Fort Pierce, arranged so that the cousins could all hang out together, even though Melissa and I have never added any children to the lot. On the day we were supposed to leave, Melissa wasn’t feeling well, the storms came down so hard that we could barely see the road, one of our family members was in and out of the hospital, multiple members of the family had been up and down with COVID (or some other lesser but still coughy-sneezy-type flu), I still had a buttload of work to do for the end of the school year, and we had just experienced the most unexpected, uncomfortable conversation with two attending members of that family. Not to mention, we were three weeks out from taking our long awaited trip to Switzerland, trying to save our money and terrified of getting sick ahead of the flight.

Discounting a couple of frustrating conversations that still came up, the sun blasted across the water near the house we rented and we managed to find a few laughs and a few endearing moments, like watching dolphins and watching my youngest nephew catch his first fish on the dock. Family is family is family.