Long Distance Family

Jer and Harrison and I went on a short trip to Tampa last weekend to celebrate the marriage of a good friend from college and his lovely wife. It was a great trip all around, and we got some video of Harrison eating sand on the Gulf of Mexico so that was pretty cool.

But my favorite part of the trip was a few days before the wedding, before the beach, before the reunion of friends, before the kitties at our AirBNB. We flew in late Wednesday night; after some airplane issues we arrived in Orlando at 3:15am. A friend who I hadn't seen in almost nine years, and her husband who I had never met, were absolute angels, Godsends, and picked us up from the airport at 4am and welcomed us into their home in Kissimmee, 45 minutes away. (Seriously-friends of the century award.)

We all went to bed around 5am, and thankfully the time zone difference worked in our favor so we stayed snuggled in bed until Harrison woke us up around 11:30.

And then at 12:45, with a knock on the front door, who was there to see us in the middle of Kissimmee, Florida, but my sister Kirstyn.

My sister who lives in West Palm Beach, who took the day off work and drove two and a half hours so that she could spend a short afternoon with us before we drove west to Tampa. Because that's how we do it in the Witzer family.

Those few hours- where we ended up driving to the Disney-made town of Celebration, sharing lunch and ice cream, and marveling at how big Harrison is getting- those were my best moments of our trip to Florida. The afternoon came and went so quickly, even after parting ways almost an hour later than planned, but it was so sweet, so special.

When you grow up close to your family and somehow manage to move to various far away places upon adulthood, you find ways to see each other no matter what. Timing? Location? Whatever- family takes trump.

Kirstyn previously came out to California and made her way to San Francisco, but not before she spent a few days with us- a month after we got married. My Mom and I took a trip to Latvia and as we were living on opposite coasts, had a mini-reunion in the JFK airport before continuing our travels together. My Northern Ireland residing sister Amanda and brother-in-law Chris and their then 4-month-old daughter planned a trip to see California, so we all planned a family reunion in Sequoia National Park during part of their trip. Kirstyn took a short trip to London while living in Spain, and Amanda hopped on a plane from NI to spend a few hours with her. I'm currently scheming up a way to get my family to visit Lexington while we're there this summer- because a 12 hour drive to Kentucky is cheaper/easier(?) then plane tickets for eight to Los Angeles.

My sisters and I do talk of wishing we could just walk down the street to say hi to each other, share meals, help care for our nieces/nephews, and simply live life together in the same proximity, but it's just not our current reality, and you can't spend your whole life wishing. When you don't have the luxury of living just down the way, you find reasons to go out of your way for each other. This is how our family works these days, and I love our little meet-ups. They are not always easy or convenient, but any time spent with family is always, always worth it.