In this episode of “The Journey of My Mother’s Son” podcast, I sit down with my cousin, Debi Wade-Scavone.

We talk about our parents and the importance of remembering our roots.

When my Mom was traveling around the country, one of the things that was so important to her was being able to connect with her family and friends.  This is one of the things that Sandy and I have been very fortunate to do so far on our travels.

Debi had started working on our family tree several years ago.  Her and my daughter, Sherry did a lot of digging to trace back the roots of our family.  Our family is very big, and we’re scattered throughout the country.  We’ve been scattered throughout the country for as long as I can remember.  However, the distance seemed as though it was always easy for our parents to overcome.  They always found a way to get us together when we were growing up.  My cousins were all like brothers and sisters to me growing up.  As we grew older, we drifted off and our own lives took over.  In recent years, we’ve all started to reconnect again, something that I think would make our parents very happy.

For whatever reason, our parents, our aunts and uncles always found a way to keep us together and connected as we were growing up.  Perhaps it was because as children, they were separated at young ages when their parents divorced.  After the divorce, our family grew even bigger as my grandparents each went on to have more children.

All in all, there were eleven brothers and sisters.  My mom always referred to all of them as family – period.  There were no “step” or “half” brothers or sisters.  She wouldn’t have it; they were all just family.  It was one of the things that she made very clear to me when I first started my relationship with Sandy.  I had one child and she had three, my mom in her own special way, made sure that I understood that we had to be one family if it was going to work.  Not “my kid’ and “her kids,” only “our kids.”

Debi points out how important our roots are and how important it is that we keep those roots alive and pass them on to the next generation.

Click on the links below for both the video and audio only version of the podcast: