My Thoughts On Fruit

The topic of family has always been a big thing for me. I have four older siblings, and growing up I was stuck in a bedroom with two of them. My dad worked as a computer programmer, which offers pretty good pay, but as a family we never got past lower-middle class.

My parents put up with me for 23 years of my life before I ever got a job and could start paying for things by myself (and even then, it still ain't much). It's because of them and the people I grew up around that I have some sense of morality in my life, that I'm alive. Without the things they gave me, I wouldn't be able to keep my temper in check as an adult; I'd likely be in prison, or worse. They put up with me even during what is beyond a doubt the hardest part of my life: when all the symptoms of Crohn's Disease hit me at once, circa 2005. I'll never be able to fully repay what they've done for me, no matter how much I do.

As I grew up, my siblings grew older and moved away. The last of them was out of the house before I graduated from high school. One of them married, got divorced because her husband was emotionally abusing her behind everyone's back, then later re-married. She and one of my brothers have children by now. Three of my siblings, due to family differences and---in part---the way my parents raised us, aren't as close to us as they used to be (and not just because all of them are at least a day's drive away). You have no idea how much I've wished that we could be an honest-to-goodness family again, not just that in name only, but sadly circumstances and life dictate otherwise.

Three of my grandparents I never got the chance to know; all of them smoked and experienced health problems related to cancer, and they all died either before I was born or close to it. That just left my grandma on my Dad's side, a tough old lady who survived the worst the world threw at her and came out on top; she didn't let her family or even her advancing age stop her from doing what she felt needed to be done. And even after moving to Michigan from Tennessee as an adult, she never lost that distinctive Southern accent. Whenever I hear Applejack or Granny Smith speak in FiM, I almost feel as if I'm hearing her talk again. If it hadn't been for a hip injury in her late 90s that she never recovered from, I'm certain she could've hit a full century; this is even more astounding when you consider that she smoked for decades before she quit for good.

The topic of family and the memories it brings, both good and bad, are why I feel Season 7's halfway point has one of the best episodes in the entire series (you know which one I'm talking about). To those children who ever loved their parents, and those parents who ever loved their kids, I strongly encourage all of you to reconnect if you haven't done so already. Why? Let me tell you something.

Back in autumn 1997, a family friend of ours---just a couple years older than I was---said hello to me and suggested the possibility of us hanging out sometime, maybe seeing a movie or what have you. I said sure, that it was worth thinking about. Thing was, at the time he was struggling to deal with cancer himself; by springtime of next year, he was dead. We never did get the chance to spend time with him before his death, and looking back it has always been one of my deepest regrets.

I really don't need to spell this out for you, do I? Typing this is hard enough as it is. Believe me: you don't want to wait until it's too late to realize what you've got.

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You know what? That was depressing, so I'm going to leave you all with something humorous. Have my favorite clip from Ponies the Anthology II. Enjoy!