After dinner, and the dishes were cleaned, we went upstairs into the guest bedroom. Eve's oldest daughter was under the covers reading under the lamp on the nightstand. Eve stretched out across the edge of the bed. I sat on the floor holding a cup of tea. Emily joined us too, and so did the little pussycat with no name. I sat and mostly listened to the girls and their girl talk. Their conversation turned to a whisper and one of them asked if either of the others had any extra tampax. I looked at the three of them, scratched my head, smiled, and thought, this is my family. And then I wondered, how did I get here?

At the start, there were the five of us growing up in New Jersey, my parents, my two younger, annoying but cute twin sisters, and me (and a canary named Chonte). I thought that is how things always would be; it never would be any other way. One day it all changed. My parents divorced and suddenly there were two homes. We were what they called a "broken family" -- a sad description, yet that is just what it felt like.

Years went by. My parents each remarried, and I woke up one day and found I had all these new family parts, including step this and step that, and that was kind of cool and fun. And then I married and had the roots of my own new family, with in laws this and in laws that. It even felt like I had three families now. Then came the best of all: my own kids -- A real family again, and one where we all lived together in the same house! Normal. And forever. Or so I thought.

Slowly, and then suddenly, that changed too. Not only with divorce, but then that thing happens -- the kids got older, packed their things, and went on their own way. One day when I asked them where we are we all going on vacation, they shrugged and said they had their own plans. I went from another noisy house with a family of five, to eating alone while watching the news, which had its advantages and was not bad, just different.

More changes came: a father died, a step family vanished, a daughter married, pets came and went, an ex-wife remarried and we coined a new term -- "step-husband" and his family reached into mine, and so forth and so on. That family that was the five of us in Teaneck so long ago with the annoying younger twin sisters seems like another lifetime, and that second family of five only reappears on graduations, birthdays and weddings.

It in the end, it is still all one big happy family. It's just keeps getting bigger and by and large better. Over the many years, some branches of the family tree have fallen off, but then other new ones have come in their place and have fresh, new, green shiny leaves on them. It just keeps growing. I even have a son in law now, and with it his family and come into the fold. And here I am sitting on the floor in a house in Rye Brook, with these three girls, and the pussycat with no name, a new large branch of the family tree, drinking a cup of tea.