Lost a couple of the greats these last couple of months. Here’s a handful of thoughts.

So they started a family - they had 6 kids. Four of them had 2 kids, and one had 4. You can’t give them full credit for each grandkid, but give them half, and they’re directly responsible for adding 12 people to the human race (and counting!)
- is that the story of the 20th century? Going from 1 billion to 7 billion? Is this a one time blip? Like, we’re going to level off at 9 or 10 billion (or have a pretty bad time), so this kind of multiplying won’t keep happening for generations.
- is that arguably a good strategy for making a mark on the world?
- they made a great impact on their world. (“their world” being their family and friends.) Arguably not a huge impact on the Whole World - they didn’t cure cancer or whatever. I am coming around to the idea that that is ok. Hmm.

Man, they really friggin' did it! Born to coal miners and … I forget what Grandy’s parents did. But they came up to Cleveland, defended the country, owned a house, had a bunch of kids, who all went on to become doctors or lawyers or equally successful things, who now have their own families - like, that is not necessarily our dream today - we don’t say “ok, you had a family and a house, therefore a great life” - but to them it was! and they did it!

We all know the male history of our family more than the female history. I know Giuseppe Tassi came from Offida, Italy; I don’t know where Mary came from. Mary… Nucci? Something like that. And Grandy’s parents - the Warcabas - beats me. I imagine this is not an isolated case. I imagine part of that is because of the name. I hope that this doesn’t happen to our kids as much; I want them to know Tati’s history as much as mine. Also, naming strategies for kids. This will be interesting.

I barely even knew what Grandpa did. Grandy didn’t have a job outside the home (five kids is work enough.) He was an HR director for Hauserman Inc, which made movable interior walls. Huh. Every company out there, every office or factory you pass, like Fortney and Weygandt Inc which I sometimes pass on the way to my parents' house, has people doing all sorts of various things, and they all have big ol' families like this. Sonder.

I’ll miss ‘em! It was nice growing up with them around. They were always super excited to see Cheryl and me, and we them. Even when we started rolling our eyes and saying stuff like “man, they really love the Old Country Buffet, don’t they”… there’s a deep current of love under there that we knew and appreciated.