As I continue to try to get over this head cold, it is getting better, I will tell you that. I wanted to talk to you today about the importance of family and how cool family can be. And sometimes, and welcome to this episode of the Daily Grateful. My name is Michael Crows, and I'm a family kind of guy.
Always have been, always will be. Came from a family of five, there was my dad, there was my mom, I love my mom so much. There was my older sister, Judy, my brother, Aldo, and me. Oh, and when we were a little, we had a boxer named Ike who was named, this will tell you how old I am, after I, Eisenhower, when he was elected president.
So how's that? That's how it all came about. But anyhow, and Ike was a really cool boxer. He took care of us.
He, we had him for nine years, and then he passed. But family is everything to me. I just, I think few things are more important than families, and then we look at today. All right, now there's no one left in my immediate family except me, but I've got cousins.
I've got a cousin named Steve, I've got a cousin named Bob. They're my cousins. I've got another cousin who I'm not going to name because she don't talk to me. What's up with that?
Why's up with that? She don't talk to me. She's written me off. She doesn't like me.
She calls my son, Tyler. They have a phone conversation every Sunday, but she will not talk to me. And I cannot figure out why, but I kind of know why. I kind of know.
Well, let's see if I know. She's like really mad because in night, or in part of me in 2007, the other part of my family, my cousin Bob, and my cousin Darryl, and my cousin Nancy, they come, they're croses, just like me, but they also had their mother's part of the family. And they had a family reunion up in Michigan. And they put it on this new thing, this new fan dangle thing that everybody was on called Facebook.
And my mother had passed away. I was feeling very sad and forlorn. And I don't know. I just decided that I should go, and I talked to my brother Al.
And he goes, yeah, we're gonna go too. I'm gonna go too. I said, well, we weren't specifically invited to this thing, but there was the invitation that was in Facebook. So I took that, is that we were all invited.
And I let my cousin who does not talk to me know that we were coming. And she said, well, you've got to stay at my house. Now she lives in Detroit. This reunion was just outside of Battle Creek, about a hundred and some miles away.
I have to be honest with you, I had not been back to my hometown, or back to Battle Creek or back to Mill Lake in 42 years. It had been 42 years since I had been there. And there's a lot of reasons for that that are all family related. Mostly just, well, I'm not gonna get into it, but we all have family shit.
We all do. I hadn't gone back for 42 years. So I decided that no, I don't wanna spend a day in Detroit. I'm going to go straight there and I'm gonna get a hotel in Battle Creek.
And my brother said, yeah, I'm gonna get a hotel in Battle Creek. Not the same room, but same hotel because he brought his wife and a grandson with them. Although only Al and I went to the reunion. Now the reunion was kind of funny.
Here's what you do. Here is what you do. You have to bring your own lawn chair because we don't have enough lawn chairs. Now we flew in from Florida.
So I rented a car. I went to Walmart and I bought two lawn chairs. I told my brother, I said, I got the lawn chair thing covered. And you know what's really cool?
When we leave, I'm going to leave them there. When I leave them there, they'll be there for the next one. It ain't cool. But anyway, I wonder if they're still there.
But anyway, I just did not wanna stay at my cousin's house. And I love her, I do love her husband. But I wanted to spend all my time going around Mill Lake. I wanted to go to the little town of Hastings where I went to Catholic school.
There's a lot of trauma from there. I wanted to go to 528 West Michigan Avenue in Battle Creek, which is where we used to live, which is now a vacant lot. And I just wanna just spend most of the time by myself reflecting other than the time that we, the afternoon that we went and spent at the reunion, which by the way, was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful.
And my brother and I went out to Mill Lake and we saw the house that we grew up in and another family owned it. And we're sitting there looking at her, looking at us at who are these people. So we just got out of the car. And we walked up and we said, hi, you know, my name is Michael and this is my brother Al.
We used to live in this house. And my brother immediately said, the best times in our life were all here in this house. This is our favorite place that we ever lived. And the guy looked at us and he says, well, then you're coming in.
So he opens up, there's a gate. He opens up the gate. We come in and he takes pictures. I hand my camera to him.
He takes pictures of my brother and I in the front yard. Oh, it was fabulous. We, he took us into the house and, you know, we said, go look at every room. Go look at my bedroom was upstairs.
My brother's bedroom was downstairs. My sister's bedroom was upstairs. I walked up the stairs. I did everything.
I went into every stinking room of that house. And so did my brother. And it was such a positive and wonderful thing that we did together. And I spent the night in Detroit.
Maybe, just maybe, I don't know. That wouldn't have been available to us. But this, this cousin of mine, the last time I talked to her was within the last year, I called her up and I said, you know, I don't know, you know, I know that you're still mad about me not staying there. She goes, you're selfish.
And she goes, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, and then, you know, she goes, and I listened to your podcast and you did a podcast by my mom. I said, yes, I did. Was I totally respectful? When I did the podcast about your mom?
And she goes, well, yes, you were. I said, okay. So what's the problem? She goes, I've just decided, I'm not going to talk to you anymore.
I said, okay. And then we talked about her dad, my uncle George. We talked about him for a little bit. And she said, you know, you never heard him cuss.
I said, I did hear him cuss one time. She goes, I don't believe it. I said, yeah, I'll tell you what, all about it. She goes, what?
I said, he was trying to get a weed eater started. I was in him at his house. We were in his carport. And he's trying to get this weed eater start.
He's pulling on a bullet. It finally starts up and then it conks out. And he threw it on a concrete and he said, damn it. And I said, and that is the first and only time in my entire life that I ever heard your father swear.
And she burst out laughing. And I said, when he did that, I burst out laughing. And then my uncle burst out laughing to me. You know, it was just a really great experience and she liked that.
And then like three minutes later, she's saying, well, I'm thinking I've just never got to talk to you again. And then she hung up and then she hung up. I haven't talked to her since. Now, what's sad about that is I've mentioned before that I have no one to talk to about family history.
And she knew a lot about family history still does. I don't have access to that anymore. My brother is gone and I've mentioned this before. Everything I know about my family, I know.
And there's nothing else new that I can learn because nobody knows. My cousin Bob doesn't know because I've talked to him about it. My cousin Steve doesn't know. I've talked to him about it.
So and by the way, they're the only two left in their family. Both of their parents are gone. My uncle Dick, my aunt Barb and my cousin Darryl and my cousin Nancy. So right now it's just Bob and Steve.
So, you know, they need to cherish this time together. I'm here to tell you, a supportive family is a source of comfort during difficult times. And I gotta tell you, when my sister passed away, my cousin who doesn't talk to me anymore came to Florida and she was so, I'm getting a call and I'm not going to edit it out. I just shut off the phone.
But she was so supportive when she came down here to be with my sister in the last days of her life. She took her out and sat on a park bench with her out by the ocean and my sister told me later that day she goes, this was just so nice of her. And I'm so grateful that she did that. And I'm so sad that she doesn't talk to me anymore.
So, that's the way it is. That's just the way it is. Family creates cherished memories that fill our hearts with warmth and joy. And yes, that is true.
I'm very grateful for my family. Very, very grateful. I have five kids, believe it or not, a couple of my kids don't talk to each other. I will never, ever have myself in a situation where I'm not talking to all of my kids.
I will never give up on any of my kids, ever. I'm not even giving up on my cousin who doesn't talk to me. Just not doing it. So, there is that.
And since I mentioned her name earlier in this, I gotta go edit her name out. Excuse me, still trying to get over this cold. Damn it. All right, we'll see you tomorrow.
Be grateful for your family. Be grateful that you woke up this morning. I am.