If I may make a geeky reference to Harry Potter; I really could use a pensieve.

Much of my weekend was spent in a muddled frame of mind. I've been thinking so much about family relationships and mortality and strange looking diaper rash that I can't quite seem to pull two rational thoughts out of my head and piece them together in an intelligent fashion.

I have always been fully aware that death is an unavoidable part of life, and I have wondered at the luck of my family in avoiding any close encounters with catastrophic diseases. How many people in the world get cancer? Why have none of the statistics touched my close circle as yet? Where can I find a piece of wood to knock on?

My father nearly killed me when I alluded to the infamous Kit Kat story in his birthday post in August, so I won't earn myself any reprimands by going into what went on with him this weekend, but suffice it to say that I never imagined my parents being anything but full of life and vitality, so a little scare, hopefully little, snapped me into the full reality of how fragile life is. I am not fond of fragility, but it does make me want to embrace my loved ones with more intensity and frequency, and to never waste a minute of any day.

Which leads me to my next quandary. I am so keen to appreciate my family, and yet there is a relationship that I cannot seem muster up a contrivance to mend. All the issues that drove a wedge between us initially have long since been over and done with, but it seems that there is always a reason to keep my distance. There have been a few encounters in recent weeks, but each of them have left me feeling like there is good reason to keep the barrier in place. Just when I begin to miss the camaraderie, another warning flare blazes in and blocks the way. I can't yet get my bearings enough to know if more time is all that's needed or if circumstance will have to change.

In other matters, it is a lucky woman who has a veritable army of family support to rely on when there are mysterious rashes to diagnose, favors to ask, and problems to talk about. My mom is Super-Woman, my sisters never fail in sympathy for my hang-nails and household frustrations, and my mother-in-law is a generous fountain of knowledge. My unending hero of a husband is all of that, minus the tights, plus custom-made companionship and a handful of good sense. Yep, that lucky girl is me.

And finally, I've been blessed. My family has been blessed. We're all working together with a practiced mechanical precision, and only the occasional gear grinding. There's a lot of good, a lot of harmony, a lot of gratitude going on in our family. I feel so glad to be in the imperfect place that I am.

And that concludes the exodus of my thoughts out of the black hole from which they were derived. For tonight, anyway.