Some people in your life you have a choice to love and be in love with, others you inherit. You know you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. How tight you choose to hold your family might reflect how you hold yourself.

Lately I have been taking care of my 76-year-old mother. She’s doing pretty well all things considered. Got sick last November and went into the ICU for ten days. Before that did most things herself, going to the doctors, shopping, cooking and the daily goings on in life. I helped out on the big things, as did my brother that lives close by.

After the hospital she’s was in rehab (never use the term nursing home WOW big mistake) it lasted another four months. During that time all her child came and saw her, four in all, I have three brothers and a sister. Everyone puts in their two cents, a few split up the main tasks at hand, bills, cleaning, and her house.

What you learn from these kind of events is what your family is made of, the right stuff or a few leaks in the boat. No boat is with out a leak or two but leaks can be fixed. As long as no one wants to sink the ship the boat will float.

You find new ways of doing things together as a team. You might even see the strength of the character that you have for family. Greatness indeed does come the ash heap of life and how you look at it makes it good or bad. Yes you can play the cards you are dealt with as you see fit but better the play of fitting the right person with the correct task.

Planning in this area is just as important as a will or burial plan even a plain understanding of who will do what. Even a simple outline of what needs to be done and who might best handle it would be well worth you time to do. So sit down and talk to your family about these kind of needs. In the long run you will find this to be much easier to handle on the front end, then pushing it up hill after the fact.

It’s the quality of the person giving the love, not the quality of the person receiving the love.