Importance of Family

Family, they are the most important thing anyone could have and some of the most influential people in your life. Your everyday life is shaped around them and they will always be there for you no matter what. Their function is simple, love each other, respect each other, and do anything you can to help each other if ever needed, no matter how big or small. Family is shown and discussed in two great pieces of literature, “Stone Soup” by Barbara Kingslover and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. “Stone Soup” talks about how there are many different types of families and it’s ok for them to be different than the steriotypical mom, dad, son, and daughter. And in A tree grows in brooklyn Betty Smith wrote about a family who was always there for eachother and showed what it is like to be a true family.

What is the importance of family? You could answer that question in a million different ways. “As long as I live, I will never have a woman for a friend. I will never trust any other woman again, except maybe mama and sometimes Aunt Evy and Aunt Sissy”(Smith, 238). I think this shows one reason why family is important, because even as this young girl says she will never trust one person from an entire gender ever again she still says how she will trust her family, which shows how family are always the ones you can trust no matter what. Another reason family is important because they help you through hard times and can stay strong for you, even if you can't. I also think family is important because it doesn’t have to be perfect “ to judge a family’s values by its tidy symmetry is to purchase a book by its cover”(kingslover,19). Families would be boring if they were all the same, there differences is what makes them special and important.

Families also have countless functions. Not just like how your mom is always there for you when you are sick or your brother is there for you when you need to laugh, family as a whole is always there for you when needed. ”His own cheering section of grown ups and kids all leap to their feet and hug each other, delirious with love for this boy. He’s andy, my best friends son. The cheering section includes his mother and her friends, his brother, his father and step-mother, a stepbrother and stepsister, and a grandparent.”(kingslover,1) . This is just one example of the function of a family, to be there to support your achievements, even if in the case of this family it may be difficult because of their past, they are strong for you. Family should also be there for you during your low days and mistakes. Another function of a family is to push and determine each other, for example when Neeley and Francie got a christmas tree together no one thought they could do it. But francie stood up for them and said “We’re not too little together”(smith, 202).And together they could do it and they won the christmas tree. There are many other family functions along with these.

So, overall my definition of family would be anyone who is always there for you loves you and supports you.Families are the most important people in you life and have the biggest function.

Sacredness of the Ordinary

There are many objects that mean so much to me, but to many may just seem ordinary, maybe even pointless. One thing that is very important to me but might seem like just a regular sweatshirt to many people is my Ohio state university sweatshirt. It’s more what the sweatshirt reminds me of, than the sweatshirt itself. This year in August my brother left his home of 18 years to go to college at Ohio State, he is more than 600 miles away from me and I miss him more and more each day. Before he left he bought this sweatshirt for me and gave it to me as a present, which means so much to me.
Me and my brother have always been close and over the years we have gotten closer. He is my only brother so I always go to him  with my problems, and he always has just the right thing to say to help me. I always think about our crazy, fun, exciting memories we had growing up I hope he thinks of them to. When we were little we used to have squirt gun fights and build snow forts together, sometimes we would even has sleep overs in each other’s room on summer nights.  As we got older we would get into fights over the stupidest things. Now we like to go for coffee runs and hang out in Maine during the summer. Some of my best memories from the past few years are of us singing loud while driving to down the highway. I think that the older we get the closer we will get. When he picked out the sweatshirt for me he knew i would love it because he knows my style really well! It is a grey hoody with the Ohio state logo in red on the front along with a big O, which is also one of the schools nicknames. Every time I wear it, I think of him. It makes me sad to think that he's not with me, but also it reminds me how much he loves me.

He is majoring in landscape architecture at Ohio State, he is really enjoying it even though it is a lot of work. Sometimes he is up till 4 AM in the morning doing all of his work but he still gets it done.  He is so busy there we can only face time a few nights a week but I always look to forward to it and plan what i’m going to say, so we can most of the little time we have. My brother is coming home in a few weeks, just for a couple days and i can't wait for him to tell me all about everything that has happened so far! I'm so proud of everything he's accomplished over the years, especially these recent things. I believe everyone has one special object that they really cherish and my brother’s college sweatshirt is definitely mine.