For 4th of July this year I’m taking the kids (Shannon has to work through the end of the week) to Walla Walla Washington, where my brother’s in-laws live. Every year this part of my family gets together for a big party and liberally uses explosives all around the cattle ranch, and this year we will do that again.
This year, though, we’ll have one major difference – Big Ed, the patriarch of the family (and my brother’s father-in-law) passed away earlier this year.
There was some discussion in the last few weeks about what the family should do this year – fresh with grief, it’s hard to imagine things ever being the same. But the decision was made that the family should do what it does to enjoy itself.
I look forward to being with family and, in a redemptive and celebratory manner, blowing things up in Big Ed’s name, and telling stories and laughing with a grieving family.