I’ve never been more thankful for my family than I am now. It took me 22 years, a few family deaths, my brother being deployed and both of my sisters having life-threatening illnesses to realize just how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my life. Yes, they get on my nerves and irritate me to no end, but at the end of the day I have nothing but love for them. It’s a funny thing but no matter what we do to our family members, be it yelling at them or stealing their clothes or not doing the chores we were asked to do, they get mad at us and we just bounce back from it like nothing happened the next day. In my opinion, that’s the best part about family; we start new each day without the carryover from the day before.

When I was in college, I always felt guilty for being the one with all the “family problems.” My brother was deployed, my sister had cancer twice and my other sister went to treatment for eating disorders all in a span of four years. It always seemed as though no one else’s family went through as much as mine did. I felt like no one could ever relate to what I was going through and that I wasn’t really allowed to talk about what I was going through when all of this was happening. In hindsight, not that I would ever wish any of what happened to my family on anyone else or wish for it to happen again, but it made me a much stronger person. While my siblings have an inner strength I may never possess in my lifetime, they have shown me that anything is possible. I grew up sometimes wishing I was an only child but looking on 22 years of life with my siblings, I wouldn’t trade what they have taught me for anything in the world.Through thick and thin my family has always been there for me, and I hope one day I’m half the person that they are.

For 22 years, for a variety of reasons, I lived without cousins I had no clue I had. I met them because I happened to be in the right place at the right time — a baseball field of all places. Meeting my two cousins has been life changing. I have a twin sister but these two are the true little sisters I’ve always wanted. They’ve helped push me out of my comfort zone; they’ve perfected the art of replying to text messages with gifs, and while I’ve given them my fair share of dating advice (no dating until you’re married), they have even given me some awesome dating and life advice, believe it or not. Even though we are years apart, they helped me realize that there is so much fun to be had in life and watching baseball games isn’t the worst way you could spend your summer.

Your family isn’t around forever and that is just an unfortunate reality, but we have the amazing opportunity to decide how we spend the time we are given with them. We can choose to not involve ourselves in the lives of our other family members or we can be texting the family group chat daily and going for ice cream every chance we get. I’m not saying that you need to see them every day or have Sunday dinners together every week but don’t end up wishing that you knew them better when they are gone. I’m kicking myself for not knowing about my cousins because I wish I got my childhood years with them, and I’m working so hard to make up for that time now.

I urge all of you reading this to go home today and hug your family, give them a call, or write them a letter. Let your family know that you’re thankful for them being in your life. Take time to reconnect with the family members you haven’t talked to in a while and include them in your current life. I can assure you wholeheartedly that you won’t regret it.