The Ross sisters in matching dresses at Easter

Today’s post has nothing to do with India…or maybe it has everything to do with my time here in India.  While I’ve been here, I’ve been thinking a lot about the people I love most and a lot about how I was raised.  I was raised in a loving home.  A very loving home.  I have two loving, hard-working parents and 3 beautiful sisters.  I was raised in a family that had dinner together every night.  If one sister had a tennis match we all piled in the car and went to the tennis match.  We took a winter ski trip every year and a summer vacation (usually a beach trip) every year.  When I studied a semester in Italy, the entire family came to spend Christmas together in Italy.  We did things together…as a family…almost always.

When I went away to college my mom had to take me to the laundry room in the dormitory and show me how to do laundry.  That’s right.  I had never done a load of laundry until I went away to college!  I was coddled, loved and given every material thing I ever needed.  If any of my sisters or I showed an interest in anything my parents would support and nurture that interest.  My younger sister Haylee always loved sharks, dolphins and whales and read books each night about sea life.  So, when she was about 13, my mom did some research (before the internet!) and found a marine biology camp and they sent her for 2 weeks.  That’s the kind of parents they were.

So, how did I get so lucky?  Why me?  Why not the kids I see everyday on the streets and at SBT?  Why doesn’t everyone get the kind of parents and childhood that I had?  Why? Who decides? How would I have turned out if I didn’t have the family and support that I have?

With my Mom and Dad in Chicago

With my Mom and Dad celebrating my birthday in Italy