Mark Knows It All

Last week, I had the occasion to have dinner with a group of my family members. Included in the group were my Aunt Rosemary who was married to my father’s deceased brother Lou; my Uncle Bud who was married to my mother’s deceased sister Dee; and Jerry who was married to my late cousin Marilyn. Of course, my mother and father are both deceased. So there we sat in the Springfield Grill having a wonderful time. Although I come from a rather large extended family, my mother and father, Rosemary and Lou, Dee and Bud, and Marilyn made up my core family. These are the folks with whom we would spend most of the holidays and celebrations. My mother and father did a fair amount of traveling with Dee and Bud (belonging to my mother’s side of the family) and Rosemary and Lou (belonging to my father’s side of the family). Marilyn, Dee and Bud’s daughter, and I were raised in a duplex and viewed ourselves more like brother and sister. It dawned on me, looking around at these folks last week, that th