The Best Family Ever.

I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of weeks ago. My friends and family were, for the most part, really kind. I got a facebook inbox full of letters from people all around the world asking me if I was alright, and if did I want to talk to them about it? My friend Lucas went a step further and phoned me from Switzerland to lend a sympathetic ear. My family, the most comforting of all, soothes in a uniquely Badenochian way.

Ian, Anna, and Carissa offer respectively hugs, advice and an offer to talk, "at any time, even if you have to wake me up at two in the morning, even though I can't promise that I'll be really cogent."

My mom, after talking to me for a long time ponders something quietly to herself before saying, "Well, we need to let Danny know that just because he broke up with you doesn't mean he broke up with the family. Next time he's in town, we should have him over for dinner. We'll just send you out of the house."

My brother Lester calls me from New York and gives me grief that he found out over facebook rather than me calling him, and says, "I really thought Danny was quality stuff. I mean, when he came to St. Louis during Christmas break, he went to the shooting range with the boys. That's a brave man right there, that hangs around with a girl's father and three adult brothers while they're all armed with handguns and rifles."

Josiah offers grunts and eyebrow lifts when I try to talk to him, but later tells his friends that he thinks any guy would be lucky to have me. He also asks me if I'm planning on getting back together with T., my highschool boyfriend who I haven't dated in five years. No, I say, trying to remember the last time I even saw T., I don't think so. To which Josiah grunts.

I think my dad is praying for me. That said, it didn't stop him from teasing me the day after I broke up when I caught a horrible stomach flu (I described it as feeling like I had swallowed a giant live squid that I can feel pulsating inside my belly). I lay in the fetal position under a mound of covers, moaning and cradling my abdomen. "Oh ho ho," he chuckled, "Lovesick I see."

I have the Best Family Ever.