Welcome to “About the family.” I suppose this blog is mostly about our family, But, by extension, it’s about your family, too.

How can I say that since I don’t even know your family?

One thing I have learned over my (ahem) years of life, is that we, as people, are pretty much all the same.

No, really.

Ever sit in a group therapy session?   I remember the first time I was in a group. Oh boy. Here I go saying too much right off the starting blocks. I thought my fears and insecurities were things no one else would understand.

So every time the group leader would call on me, I would say “I pass.”   Now if you ever attend group therapy, you will find out you can’t get away with this for very long.

The leader finally tired of my non participation and hammered and pried one of these deep dark fears out of me.   Which was not easy because I am very good at clamming up.   Very good.

After I spoke, the room was silent for about ten seconds.

Omigod!  What did I just do?  Did I really say that?  Did I actually tell them that?

Then one of the other group members chimed in:  “Yeah. Me, too.”

And then another.

A third, after agreeing, actually elaborated on the same fear.

And then another member added to the third’s elaboration!

As I sat there listening I found myself  exclaiming:   “Exactly! Me, too!”

They weren’t laughing hysterically and pointing fingers and telling me that I was an absolute weirdo.

They actually identified with me.

That was a very big day for yours truly.  For the first time in my life I discovered everyone in the group had the same fears – - or some variation thereof.

Now this was very cathartic on a whole bunch of levels.

First of all, I learned I am not a weirdo.

Secondly, I am actually pretty normal.

Thirdly, discussing these fears made them seem not so GIGANTIC.

There is also a fourthly and fifthly and on down the line, but we can talk about those later.

So.   I will be writing many of the articles.   My wife will also write some.

We are going to write about our family — our kids, our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews.   You will find some of them are real characters, believe me.

We will also write about our marriage, our health concerns, our finances, our neighbors, our pets, our home.

We will write about all of it, and we will be open and honest.  Hopefully we will make you laugh a lot. We might make you cry now and then, because much of this will boil down to writing about feelings:  Our joys and our successes, our weaknesses and our fears.

And you know what?

You will find these are very similar to your joys, your successes, your weaknesses and your fears, too.

And that’s the point.

You’re going to love us. Most of the time. At least I hope you will (one of my great fears is not pleasing people).

Realistically, though, I suppose sometimes you won’t like us. When that happens think about why. Maybe we are holding a mirror up.    Who knows?  We’ll see.

So Welcome!  We’re happy to have you along for the ride. Just remember this one rule: What is said here, stays here. This is personal, after all.  It’s about the family.

We lost a very dear friend the other day to heart disease.   To make matters worse, he was a physician.

Ralph was 61 years old and lived in mountains of Eastern Tennessee.   He worked as a family physician at a medical clinic that offers free care to patients who are too poor to pay for health insurance or even a doctor’s visit.

Whenever I would talk with Ralph on the phone he was always cheerful.  He was always up.   He was the type of guy that knew something about everything, but would never brag about it, or impose his thoughts on you.  Frequently he would listen until he was asked a specific question, and suddenly, as he modestly bubbled forth this wealth of information, you realized what a genius he was.

Ralph woke up at about 4 in the morning last Tuesday night realizing he was having a heart attack.  He immediately got on the phone and called 911 and an ambulance rushed him to the very hospital where he was on staff and practiced medicine.

His colleagues, realizing open heart surgery was immediately necessary, were rushing him into the O.R., when Ralph suddenly suffered a second and more massive heart attack.

This one killed him.

And it also killed something special in everyone who ever had the good fortune of knowing Ralph.

At 61 years of age our good friend died right there were he so often worked.

We have all lost loved ones throughout the years.  And it always reminds us that we are, after all, mortal.

What angers me, is that Ralph should not have died so young.

Ralph was not one to quickly dispense medical advice, especially over the telephone, but I do know that he believed strongly in preventative medicine.   He was definitely not a pill pusher, and had strong feelings that Americans are over medicated.  He felt it was this obsession with pills prescriptions many times made us sicker.

Anyway, I may write more about Ralph later.  He deserves a lot more than this small entry.

But his passing did what the passing of any loved friend or family member is supposed to do.  It made me look at my own lifestyles.

I started doing some reading on heart disease.   You may find some of this interesting.  I have included a page on our website, here, and also enjoyed some of the information found at this location.