Forgive and Forget

If anyone truly knows me, they know that "feelings" are not something that I acknowledge. Okay, wait! I'm not saying that I have no feelings, because I do! But, you know when people say that, "I just had a feeling that it was...",or something of that nature? Yeah, 99.9% of the time I'm gonna have to call bull shit! That 0.01% that I don't call bull shit was experienced today. So by now your mind is probably running a million different directions as to what I am about to say. Don't get your hopes up. It's no mushy love story or anything fairytale like that. In fact, it was one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me. I was at work in the back of the store when the bell saying that someone was coming in the door went off. Like always, I paced up the center isle to see if the customer needed any help. It was weird though. Before I could even see the faces of this couple, I had this feeling. It was the weirdest thing ever. I felt like I had to know who they were. I asked if they needed help and they replied that they just were going to look around.  So, I went back about half way to the back of the store and I had to turn around. They were talking to one of the guys that I work with, Clint. They were talking to him as if they knew him. So when they created enough distance between themselves and Clint, I asked Clint if he knew them and he said no, but that they knew his wife. In most situations when we are nosy we can just look at the credit card receipt to find out someone's name. However, of course in this situation these people used cash. Now how am I supposed to be nosy with that? Anyways, after they had paid for all of their merchandise they hung around, almost as if they had some unfinished business. It was the most awkward 45 seconds of my life. I felt like I was staring at them because I was trying to figure out who they were, but it was almost as if they were doing the same to me. Finally, Clint (the guy that I work with) cut the tension and asked them if there was anything else that he could help them with. At first they said "No", then about a minute later they walked up to him and said that they had heard that one of their relatives worked at Weldon's while they were at home from school. My heart sunk. For whatever reason I knew that they were talking about me but I had not a clue in the world who these people were. After discussing it with Clint and they said that it was a McCollum girl. Oh no! When I hear "a McCollum girl", most the time people are referring to me and it's usually about some crazy dumb stunt that I have pulled. After Clint pointed me out to them it all clicked. It was my great-aunt and her husband. Okay, so by now you are probably wondering why I don't have a clue as to what my aunt looks like. Well I often wonder that too. After hugging her and asking her how her and her family were doing, we put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out that I had not seen here since I was VERY young. For my family to be so close, I have always thought that it was weird that she was never present. I have never figured it out. She is close to my grandmother's other sister, but for whatever reason her and my grandmother do not speak. I have heard many different stories as to why, but you never know when every single one of the stories is different. I do know that there are many differences between the two of them and the last time that they have seen each other is when my great-grandma died when I was only eight. If you do the math, they haven't seen each other in over ten years! Whatever went on between them must have been pretty bad if 10 years has separated them. I know that hardly let 10 hours, much less 10 days or even 10 years come between Shelby and I. I just don't understand!

Basically the moral of the story is to follow your gut feelings, in which I will make fun of everyone for, because until today I thought they were just a load of crap. Also, forgive and forget when it comes to family. Not only are you hurting yourselves, you are keeping younger generations away from their family. My grandmother has not had her sister there, my dad has not had his aunt there, and I haven't even met some of my cousins. If we really are the close family that I thought that we were, isn't something wrong with this situation. Regardless what drove this wedge between them, nothing is so terrible to tear apart two siblings. Today was a day that I will try to always hold onto. I got to see family that I obviously could not even pick out of a crowd of people. I got to see how beautiful of a great-aunt that I have (like 70 going on 55 beautiful). I learned that I had quite a few cousins that I never knew existed, and might not ever meet. Additionally, I learned that the beautiful woman that I saw today had to have stints put in her heart last week and is about to go through a very risky surgery. All of this without the support of part of her family that hardly even knows her anymore. With today, I think God of providing me with the job that I have where I get to interact with great people and I can put everything on hold in a mind boggling situation like this, I also think him for letting our paths cross ways to where I could see my aunt. Who knows if  I will ever see her again, though I would like to. Also, I think God for the amazing family that I do have. Regardless if they are close or far, most of them are very close to me. In the situation that they are not, they seem like amazing people.