"Mom, are they here yet? Are they here yet? It's 7, are they here yet? Mom!" I'm 7 years old, bouncing around the house on my birthday. It's mid-June, so the air is warm and the sky is just starting to hint at darkness.

"They'll be here soon, pumpkin, I told them 7:00 to 7:30." As she stirs the massive pot of sauce on the stove, my mom reassures me that my family will, indeed, be here to celebrate what seems like a pivotal moment in my life. 7 years old. 2nd grade.

Honestly, nothing special. I don't know what I was thinking.

My grandma is sitting at the island in the kitchen, cutting cubes of cheese and arranging them on a plate. Her and my grandpa had arrived around 5, right after church. They came bearing food and a gift, wrapped in the funnies section of the newspaper, as always. "Be patient, schmackdoe." She said, ruffling my hair and then bringing me in for a hug with her forearm. She is warm and smells like copper - or so I thought at age 7. Now that I 'm older, I think it's just the metallic smell of the long, gold chain she always wears as a necklace. It has a crucifix, some medals, and small profile silhouette charms. 24 charms, to be exact, one for each of her grandchildren.

I grew up with 23 cousins on my mom's side, and we all lived in the same town. It was the greatest part of growing up. A lot of kids in my class had their birthday parties with friends, but I never cared too much about that. What I wanted was an excuse to have my family all in one place. With 40 some birthdays altogether, holidays, sporting events, celebratory parties, baptisms, confirmations, and random Sunday nights, there was never a shortage of time we spent together. We took, and still take, every opportunity we can to be near one another, eating, laughing, drinking, eating...you get it.

They say that blood is thicker than water. To tell you the truth, I don't believe that. I think it's a cop out, plain and simple. My family isn't close just because we're family. We share a bond because we choose, every day, to love each other.

Sure, if we weren't family, maybe we would never have come together to form this huge, loving amalgamation of foul language and deep hugs, of back scratches and killed bottles of Aunt Michelle's infused vodkas, of telling the truth when no one wants to hear it and Christmas Eve Snapchats with rudimentary dicks drawn in someone's hand during the mass. That never happened, but it's not out of the realm of possibility for us, and, you know what, that's actually pretty funny. I might go to confession in advance to do it this year, if Jacob the Snapchat King doesn't beat me to it.

But I know for a fact that we wouldn't be as close if we didn't choose each other. And, on my 7th birthday, once everyone had rolled in with food and wine and things had settled down, I scooted onto the red leather couch. I wedged myself between Uncle Joe in his customary Nike basketball shorts, white t-shirt, and moccasins and my Pap Zelm (also named Joe, along with 2 of my cousins, because we're very creative) in his gray turtleneck and khakis. I curled up there, my head resting on Pap's chest and my feet pressed against Uncle Joe.

As I inhaled and smelled their familiar cologne mixed with the night air coming through the windows and garlic that constantly permeated the house, I listened to the beautiful clatter around me. Pots and pans being shuffled, the occasional running footsteps and shouts of my younger cousins. The basketball game inevitably on TV while my dad strummed guitar quietly in the dining room and everyone talked away about anything and everything. The world began to swirl together in the first stages of sleep, I listened, and I absorbed, and I felt. I thought, "This has to be the nicest thing in the whole wide world."

And then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, slightly groggy, I was still there, wedged between them. The game was over, and most everyone had moved outside, but they hadn't dared to move so as to not wake me. I only think I was out for maybe 15 minutes, but still. I woke up, and I thought the same thing. "This has to be the nicest thing in the whole wide world."

And I still think that, every moment that I'm with them, or on the phone with Gramma Nora while I make her kick-ass banana cake recipe because I'm afraid I'm going to screw it up if she doesn't give me step-by-step instructions every time. I still think that every time tragedy strikes and Aunt Aimee puts her heart and soul into making chicken soup. There's so much love in it that you can't help but feel better. Every time that David sends me a text saying he misses me and making me promise I'm staying safe or Ellen cooks me dinner when she really should be sleeping in preparation for her next shift at the hospital. Any lazy summer afternoon when Phoebe gets tan and I burn to a crisp.

I still think it when I see my cousin's children growing up with as much love, toughness, and compassion as we were taught. I especially think it when 3-year old Stella already has a mouth like a sailor and the attitude to match. Every time I sit in Aunt Toonie and Uncle Gup's kitchen and feel all warm and fuzzy because it smells like home and there's always good food on the stove. When Aunt DeeDee still tells me that Santa left a gift for me at her house even though I'm twenty-some years old, when Rich or Uncle Gary or Josh offer to fix anything and everything for free, when Pap cries every time he says a prayer before the meal, I'll think it.

I thought it the day that Aunt Weaz sat and listened to me ramble, high out of my mind on whatever drugs they give you to make you pass out when you get your wisdom teeth removed. She reassured me I still had a tongue at least 8 times in an hour. I thought it when we got wine drunk at Julia's over Christmas break and recorded ourselves singing along to "Ho Hey," around the Christmas tree, because the world apparently needed to know how musically talented we were as a family, okay? I thought it when I watched my parents work their asses off, day in and day out, to build a business from the ground up, just to make sure that their kids would never have to worry.

I will think it when I grow older and I don't know how to raise a child and I call Rhea, terrified, and she says "Mary, it's okay. You can handle this." I will think it when I'm 35 and I look just like Aunt Jude, thanking God for good genes, even though she'll always be the prettiest. And when our parents, one day, are all gone, I will think it as my cousins and I hold each other and our family together.

Whether or not your family's traits are the same as mine, you're probably thinking of your own examples in your head. Maybe you have a bond with your whole family, maybe it's just one person who really gets you. Either way, take some time this week or this month, within the next hour, or the next year, and say "Thank you," or "Stay safe," or "Have you eaten yet?" or however it is that your family says "I love you." Keep choosing them, and keep letting them know you do.

To my own family: Thank you. There's a million more stories that I couldn't fit in (I'm already really pushing it on the word count), but I wish I could tell the world all of them. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, and I love you, more than I could ever possibly say using all of the beautiful words in every language combined. And although I'm currently sitting on my couch, crying because I miss you all so much, I'm thinking to myself, "Having a family like this has to be the nicest thing in the whole wide world."