I borrowed my brother Terrell’s car last week.  Our car was in the shop.  Terry drove his pick-up truck to work, so that I could drive his car for a couple of days.

[caption id="attachment_217" align="alignright" width="278" caption="Terry, Debi and Carol, circa 1955"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TerryDebiCarol55.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-217" title="TerryDebiCarol55" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TerryDebiCarol55-291x300.jpg" alt="" width="278" height="287" /></a>[/caption]

For those days, I pulled into our carport, got out of the driver’s side and walked into my house.  Then, each time I went to get into or out of the car, I approached the driver’s side and got out of it from the driver’s side.

Never once did I get in or out of the passenger side.  Until it was time to pick our car up from the mechanic and return Terry’s car.  Then Gregg got into the driver’s side and I walked around to the passenger side of my brother’s car.  And saw the new, fresh-looking scrape on that side of the car.

Oh. No.

Had it been there before we borrowed the car?  I am appallingly unobservant of such things.  It might have been there and I just didn’t see it.  If Gregg and I were talking while we got into the car, the day we borrowed it -- and we probably were talking -- I would have been focued on our conversation, not on what the car looked like.

[caption id="attachment_218" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Janice holding Beth, Carol in front of Joan, Terry, Debi and Mother, who was pregnant with David at the time"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/EverybodyBeach57.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-218" title="EverybodyBeach57" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/EverybodyBeach57-300x269.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="269" /></a>[/caption]

But, since the scrape looked new, I thought, someone probably scraped my brother’s car, while it was parked somewhere, while it was in my care.  (If it had been scraped while I was in the car, I would have noticed. I may be unobservant, but not THAT clueless!)

So I called my brother.  I got an answering machine, so I left a message.  Had he looked at the passenger side of his car? (He is, after all, my brother and like me in many ways.)  Had he seen the scrape?  Had it been there before we borrowed his car?  Please give me a call. I want to make it right.

Finally, last night, I was at my mother’s house, sitting in an easy chair across from her, my feet propped up on one side of a large ottoman.  My mother’s feet were propped up on the other side of the same ottoman.  That is how we often sit while she and I are visiting.

We discussed our recent trip to Ellijay, Georgia for apples.  And the book of Mother’s blogposts that is almost completely finished.  And my recent funny stories from work.

[caption id="attachment_225" align="alignleft" width="777" caption="Daddy with David, Terry, Carol, Beth and Debi in front of Joan, Mother. That&#39;s my dog Hercules in front of us. We&#39;re in front of our home in Ellijay, circa 1960"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FamPicEllijay.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-225" title="FamPicEllijay" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FamPicEllijay.jpg" alt="" width="777" height="585" /></a>[/caption]

My mother and I never run out of things to talk about together!

After we’d exhausted all those topics of conversation, I remembered to tell her the story of the scrape on the side of Terry’s car.  And that I hadn’t heard from Terry since I’d left the message a couple of days ago.  Mother picked up her phone and called him.  She asked him how he was doing and how his week had been.  Then asked him about the car.

[caption id="attachment_220" align="alignleft" width="227" caption="Carol, Daddy holding David, Beth, Debi and Terry, circa 1960"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Daddy5sibs1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-220" title="Daddy5sibs" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Daddy5sibs1-300x267.jpg" alt="" width="227" height="203" /></a>[/caption]

“Oh,” he told her, “I got Debi’s message, but I haven’t had time to go out and look at that car.  I don’t remember a scrape on that side of the car.  But it doesn’t matter one way or the other.”  And he and Mother chatted on the phone for another few minutes about other things.

I love my brother!  I love all my siblings - there are seven of us.  My mother tells people, when they ask, Why seven children?, seven is the Biblical number for perfection.

Gregg and I lived in an apartment, early in our married life, where the owner of the apartment was not on speaking terms with her son.  They had quarrelled over the ownership of a boat, following her husband’s funeral.  And, after the quarrel this mother and her son went several years without a word between them.  In fact, if our landlord saw her grandchildren in a store, their mother, her daughter-in-law, would hustle the children out of the store and away from their grandmother. Without speaking.

I. Cannot. Imagine. Such. Stupidity.

[caption id="attachment_221" align="alignleft" width="584" caption="Beth, Carol, Mama Shaw, Joan, Debi, Janice on the front row, Terry, Daddy, Mother and David in the back. Taken at Mama and Daddy&#39;s 45th anniversary celebration. The last such picture taken before my Father&#39;s death in 1986."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sibMamaShawDadMama45thAnniv.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-221" title="sibMamaShawDadMama45thAnniv" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sibMamaShawDadMama45thAnniv-1024x746.jpg" alt="" width="584" height="425" /></a>[/caption]

Last week, a young mother told me that she was raised by her grandparents, both of whom have recently died.  Her mother, she shared, lives here in our town, but has little or nothing to do with her, or her two precious children.

How is it possible for ANYONE to be as foolish as that woman?

I cannot imagine living in the same town with my grandchildren and having nothing to do with them.

You should see those two adorable children!  A grandmother should be captivated by that one child’s dimples.  I am not that child’s grandmother and I am captivated by her dimples.  She smiles all the time and I want to get out my camera and take pictures of her grin and her dimples.  And I am not related to her.

How does anyone live without his family?

I NEED my family.  All my brothers and sisters.  And my mother.

When we get together and start telling stories, each one of the seven of us -eight when you add in my mother - adds their own remembered details, their own personal feelings about each shared memory.  Each of us bring a unique richness to the blend that is our family.

I have trouble imagining the relationship poverty of people who have only one sibling.

[caption id="attachment_222" align="alignright" width="711" caption="Joan, Terry and Carol on Daddy&#39;s lap, Mother holding me as a baby and Janice.  Joan is holding a doll. Circa 1952."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FamilyDebiBaby.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-222" title="FamilyDebiBaby" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FamilyDebiBaby.jpg" alt="" width="711" height="484" /></a>[/caption]

I am so rich in family ties that I did not hesitate to call my brother and borrow his car.  I did not in any way stress out about it.  Even after I saw the scrape, I did not stress too much.  I felt bad that his car was damaged.  But I never, ever worried that such a small matter would interfere with our relationship.

I love my brother Terry and I know that he loves me.

I am WEALTHY in the love of my family.  And no money in the world can compare with that wealth.