I have a whole side of my mother's family that over the years I have lost touch with and there has been sadness in me because of it. And yet, for whatever reason, I have done nothing about it. I have 3 first cousins who at one time were an important part of my life. My mother and I would go every other summer to Pennsylvania and spend a month or more visiting everyone and spending time at my grandpap's old house in the middle of the woods surrounded by coal mines long ago closed down. After my mother and my aunt died, my cousins and I would talk every Christmas Eve -- it was a family tradition started by our mothers years before -- a tradition which for whatever reason just stopped in the early 90's and I have not done my part to reach out to my cousins in 16 years.

Now, I am fast approaching my 60th birthday, and I have been experiencing for want of a better term, a mid life crisis (or perhaps its just menopause run amok). It has something to do with realizing that I am closer to the end of my days than the beginning and this realization has had a philosophical effect on me. I have been searching for a way to fill up small holes in my heart and soul by beginning to write again, and having made other changes in my life, but still finding something missing. There has been an uneasy in me as if I am being told that something gigantic is going to happen and I need to prepare for it.

For the last month with the attention of our country focused on the Pennsylvania primary those feelings have only grown stronger. Seeing and hearing about places I have been to and that were a part of my youth, opened a flood gate of emotions that I was not sure how to deal with or even what was really causing all this unrest.

Then this past week, Pope Benedict came to the US on what some were calling his Tour of Reconciliation. After hearing His Holiness speak on the value of being part of a family, I knew that I had to find every one of the cousins that I spent summers with and I needed to do it now.

Early Saturday morning, I logged on to the internet and spent time finding phone numbers. I only found 2 but after spending two hours on the phone with my cousin Bruce (who was a toddler when I last saw him) I had more phone numbers and before I went to bed, I called and talked to most of my family. What is really strange is that they each told me that the day before, they had been thinking about me and remembering my mother -- see God was working on their side also. So, after 16 years, I have most of my family back and there are third cousins and fourth cousins -- members of my family I have never met nor even knew about.

My point in telling this story is to open a dialogue with as many people as possible on how our mobile society has separated families by many miles and often years. The foundation of our society begins in the family and that foundation is broken or at the very least cracked. I believe that before this country can repair our economy or our foreign policy, or any of the major problems facing us, we need to rebuild the foundation our nation was built on -- the foundation of family and community, as these are two of the major principles that our country was founded on. It is a time for rebuilding our nation but with a cracked foundation our people and our country can not get back to where it needs to be. Until we get back to our roots and stop our moral compass from spinning uncontrollably, we can never get our country right with the rest of the world.

So, if you haven't talked or visited your families lately -- pick up the phone, or write a letter -- anything to strengthen that bond. Then we can all move forward together to fix the many problems this great land of ours is facing. Perhaps we can even get back to a place and time where everyone knows their neighbors, and family time doesn't revolve around the television. All our modern conveniences have made us forget the human touch, like writing a thank you note, sitting out in the backyard in the early evening just talking, saying hi to the postman, and the feeling of security that the sense of community brings. We need to relearn how to stop and just listen to the simple sound of silence.

Our country has been going down the wrong road for so long now and it is time to take the path less traveled again instead of continuing to recklessly speed down the super highway that eventually will just lead us and our country nowhere.

And finally, to my family -- I am so very sorry that I have been so wrapped up in my own life that I forgotten about you. I hope you can forgive me and I promise all of you (you all as we say in Texas) that it will never happen again -- for we share a common heritage and we all came from the same young couple who immigrated to the United States so many years ago.

Copyright (c) 2008 Mary Ann Boulette