As I sit here and write this, I have just gotten back from spending the day with some of my extended family. Some I have only heard of. Others I have met once or twice, and others I haven’t seen in four or five years. When I meet and see these special people, they already know about the events that are going on in my life. They’ve kept up with my life and my family’s life on social media over the years. It is unexplainable how great it feels to have a cheering section six states away from you.

As I sat in my uncle’s kitchen and listened to the numerous laughs and memories shared, an overwhelming feeling of happiness consumed me. The kind of happiness that makes you feel like you could cry at any moment. Happy tears, of course.

Being around extended family also helps you to learn more about your parents, while driving around their hometown and listening to the memories they share with you about different places they hung out at as teens, or where they would go for their dates. Also, watching the interaction between your parents and their siblings gives you insight into what their childhood was like. Who gravitated toward who more, and the times when they played together, or even fought.

It starts to get real when they bring out the box of pictures from their childhood. The pictures are filled with them as chunky little babies, to the teenage years that were filled with frosted tips. The '80s big hair, and the funky clothing. The room erupts with roars of laughter and the feeling of tears comes and tugs on your sleeve again.

Living away from your extended family is extremely hard. You see their lives changing alongside yours. Life gets so busy with work and school that there is hardly time to set a week aside to come and visit. But when the time comes for a visit, it seems that there had been no time in between this one and the last.

As I have grown up, I have learned something very important from my extended family; they have taught me that whenever I need them, or if there is a big event in my life, they will always be there. Whether it is in spirit, or in physical form. They have come to mine and my siblings graduations, they made the long trip to Colorado for my brother's wedding, and they were there with us at our home, as quick as they could be, the moment they heard of my sister's passing away.

If there is a part of my family that I don’t thank or acknowledge enough, it would be my extended family. So to my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and all of my cousins, thank you. Thank you for being such a gracious part of my life. Thank you for watching me grow up and wanting nothing but success for me. Thank you for making the numerous trips to Kansas, when we don’t reciprocate that in return to you guys. Y’all are the better half of my life.