BOUND TOGETHER

Once upon a time an average girl was born into an average family in an average-sized midwestern town. She had a big brother and a little brother and 2 parents who loved
all of them very much. As the children grew up, as siblings do, they fought. The girl and the older brother did not get along well at all. They had little in common and used to
call each other "fink" (which was not allowed to be said in the home but was exchanged
many times anyway). The little brother cut all the hair off the girl's bride doll one day and one day he got her into a heap of trouble when he flew through the glass front door as she was chasing him.

The sister and her brothers grew up and started talking to each other like siblings should as they got into their college years. As they all moved into their 20's and 30's and started having children of their own, they finally became close. The parents were so happy that the children were acting the way they should have acted 20 years before. The sister and her brothers became bonded with an emotional glue that was impossible to define.

One day the sister was diagnosed with cancer which filled the parents and the brothers with fear and despair and grief. All they wanted was to make it go away. Those parents and those brothers, however, acted strong for the girl and even in their own pain, she knew that they would always walk beside her, no matter what happened with her disease. They all wept with her and feared with her and comforted her in ways only the 4 of them could.

She knew that they were a family for the long haul, the 5 of them. She knew that at the sound of her voice saying, "I need you," that they would come, from miles away, in an instant. She knew that those 4 people loved her with every fiber of their being because that was how much she loved them. The girl knew that the love that flowed through all of their souls was far deeper than the cancer cells imbedded in her body.

And for the girl, that was everything.