Since December 27th, 2 family members have passed away.

I consider myself (and my brother) extremely lucky.  We have a very large extended family. My great-grandmother, affectionately known as Nana, though she preferred Nana Darling (love it), lived until she was 91.  Many of our friends didn't even have great-anything relatives. We were close with her. She certainly lived a long and full life and I really miss her. I remember sitting on my grandmother's living room floor playing what we affectionately called the Italian Finger game. She'd hold her hand out, palm down and we'd put our pointer fingers straight up underneath it. She'd say this rhyme and at the end try to catch our fingers. Literally hours of this and we loved it. We'd laugh and laugh and so would she.  She died in April 2006 and it was one tough time for me.

Her family is large. All Italian and all amazing.  We would have family parties, like graduations, at a huge ballroom a.) because our cousin owned it and b.) there were so many darn aunts and uncles we needed all that room. So much running around with cousins and fun.  It would take us 20 minutes just to say goodbye at the end of the night because we had so many people to speak with.  Aunt Julia, Aunt Rose, Uncle Tony, Uncle Louie, Aunt Mary, Uncle Vince...just to name a few.

Now, they are all in their 90s. I haven't seen most of them since our wedding in March 2008. Being so far away is very hard.

In December, we lost Uncle Vince. So sad. He was this small Italian man who would do anything for anyone who needed it. So generous. And there were things he did that we didn't even know about until his funeral, simply because he didn't feel the need to say anything. He genuinely did it for all the right reasons.  For example, the Watervliet football team was going to the state championship game one year. They needed turf cleats.  He knew those kids couldn't afford them and was so proud of their efforts that he bought every.single.player. turf cleats. If it wasn't for that, they couldn't have gone.  He'd also sit on the bottom bleacher of every girls home basketball game and cheer and watch.  They also said he enjoyed pointing out calls the refs missed and would chat with them during timeouts, etc. While I never saw this, I can picture it. He had this really quiet way of letting his opinion known. Always polite but he'd tell you how he felt.

Last Thursday my Aunt Mary died. She lived downstairs to my Uncle Vince. She was so sweet. So caring. She will be missed terribly.

As I said before, I am so lucky. I have the best relatives. They are Italian, loving, fun and have taught me so much about life, even if just through small actions. Life may pass us by very quickly and those we thought would always be there aren't.  But it's really the memories (thanks Uncle Joe, as the Chicken Dance is always going to be your song) that last.

Love you, Coccas!