I just had one massively draining weekend. All told I spent about twenty hours in the car between 4:00 Friday afternoon and midnight last night, travelling down to where I grew up and back. I know a lot of you are aware of the issues I've had with my family, and I thought you might be interested to hear this. It's long and drawn out and emotional, so thanks in advance to anyone who bears with me.

I haven't seen my family in five years. (Mom, Dad, and younger sister and brother.) I've spoken to each of them no more than once or twice since then, and almost always those conversations turned into someone screaming at me until I hung up. They all showed up to my wedding three and a half years ago, but it was not a happy thing- my mother pretty much screamed and cried through the entire ceremony. A long story, but the general idea was that she didn't like my decision to leave school and get married, and she also was unfortunately having a very tough time of things around then.

Then I found out on Thursday that my Grandmother (my mother's mother) died. And I found out that in order to go to the funeral I would have to arrange to get some 600 miles away on one day's notice. I very much wanted to go to the funeral, because I was close to my Grandmother and, having not seen her in three years, wanted to say goodbye. However, I also knew this would be a very awkward situation for me, because I had no idea how my family, particularly my mother, would react to my being there.

Luckily I was able to meet my aunt and uncle, who I've kept in touch with, before going to the funeral. They were aware of the situation but didn't really know the story behind it, but they wished me good luck and assured me that they still loved me no matter what happened.

Walking into the funeral home, knowing my parents and my sister and brother were already there, I had the worst butterflies in my stomach ever. Worse than before any performance I've done, worse even than my wedding day. I agonized over what I would say to them, and how I could get past all the hurtful things they've done over the past few years.

... It went so much better than I ever could have hoped. "I'm so glad you came" was what she said to me when I walked in. Maybe something about losing her own mother made my mother realize that she couldn't stay angry at me forever. Maybe something about being in the place where I grew up, surrounded by family, away from my husband, gave me the courage to let go and try to start over. It's sad, of course, that it takes something like the death of a loved one to bring about a reconciliation, but at the same time, my mother and I are both very headstrong, stubborn people, and there needed to be a catalyst of some sort.

It feels very good to forgive. Not just to ignore what happened or say it doesn't matter, but to really, truly, be able to put it behind me and start over. I will never have a wedding picture with my parents. I will never get back the five years I missed seeing my baby brother grow up, or seeing my sister's college graduation. And of course those are sad things, but knowing that I might once again have a bond with my parents and friendships with my siblings makes all of those things seem unimportant.

I always knew I was missing out on things. I knew that I missed being close to my family. But I just today realized that family is more important than - well, just about everything else. Not more important than my husband - that was, in fact, a major point of contention between us - but it looks like maybe we're getting somewhere.

People have been telling me to be patient, things will work out somehow. And they ended up turning around very suddenly, so I'm still kind of reeling from it. And there's still a lot of work to be done. But it just feels so good to know finally, something is happening. Finally, I have a family again. And now I have two Moms. All things considered, I'm a very lucky girl.