Love My Family!

I have always been close with my brothers.  We are close with our father.  We grew up close and I believe that this has had a major impact on how I am as a husband and father - I am close with my wife and close with my children.  My children are close with each other.  We are always there to help and support each other.  As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in Dublin where I traveled for work.  It is a great feeling knowing that when I return, I will be happy to be back with Debbie (my partner in life), and look forward to seeing the girls as they are both home this (past) weekend.

October is a month for us to celebrate closeness and our love for each other.  As it ends up, October is a special month – this ends up being the month, where not only I got married, but the month in which the four living Zeiler men got married.  This is the month where we became betrothed to our loved ones and increased the Zeiler family.

I have found marriage, love and closeness a special intertwining thing, in that if you truly love someone, you move from an “I” to a “We”, and you strive to become better than you were.  You see, I believe, that true love makes us stronger, gives us the ability to face things we would otherwise avoid and teaches us to bind ourselves together into a unit.  I know of some that struggle with this and have been less than successful.  Love and marriage are not about self or for selfish gains: but what we collectively do for each other.  For example, if Almira Gulch (fictitious name), married only to have someone tend to her child, made their spouse sell off his assets and then tossed him out of her house and marriage - This would be a marriage for selfish gain, an inability to understand the bigger picture of what a couple and family mean and completely using another person.  Unfortunately, not all Almiras recognize this, becoming jealous of what others have and that is sad.

As I finish my ruminations for the week, I am sitting in the Dublin Airport, waiting for the boarding call (yes, I am sipping a final Guinness).  As always, when I travel sans family, I am looking forward to the return home, to being home with Debbie, to seeing my family and returning to those that I am close to.  I know I will see my whole family this weekend and look forward to the time spent together…as a family.