On Saturday, I drove my father up to Aurora because he was buying a car from my uncle.

My girlfriend decided to come along for the ride, which suited me fine since she had not yet met my dad’s side of the family and I hadn’t seen them in about four years.

However, along the way I realized I hadn’t seen my dad’s family in much longer than that. It had been nearly six years since our last family get-together.

This realization hit me smack in the face when I saw my cousin Jim, who had to reintroduce me to his daughter, whom I hadn’t seen since she was perhaps nine or 10.

Now she was a teenager and I felt like I didn’t even know her.

What’s worse is that as I sat there talking to my aunts, uncle and cousins, I realized that I had become a bit of a stranger to all of them.

Don’t get me wrong. We are still family and still love one another. But it had been so long since I had seen these people – people I used to make three or four regular trips a year to visit – that I had no idea what they were up to in life and they had no idea what I was doing, aside from writing my columns.

Over the course of the afternoon my uncle started telling jokes with my cousins, as they will do.

And my dad and aunt started sharing old stories from the neighborhood, as they will do. And I suddenly felt a little more like I had when I was young, sitting around watching the adults talk.

The only problem is that I am now an adult and I feel like I’ve got to start making up for lost time. We aren’t always going to be here, and I realized that if I took another five or six years to see them, they really would be strangers by then.

Family is the most important thing in the world. We all need a place to feel safe, secure and loved, and that place should be your family.

However, we cannot stop in every five years just for a couple hours of face time and assume everything is going to be as it always was.

I sat there in my uncle’s house, looking around as my girlfriend made polite conversation and laughing at all the jokes and I thought of how weird it would be if she didn’t see her family, whom she talks about so often, for five years.

I feel like I’m the exception who proves the rule. It seems to be cool to dislike or distance oneself from his family. But I love mine and I love spending time with them. I simply forgot that until this past weekend.

I forgot how funny they are and how nice it can be to sit down and listen to stories about how my father used to be before he was my age.

I forgot all that cliché stuff that seems silly when we are around our family all the time but seems so important when you are apart for too long.

Ultimately, family is all we have. Friends are incredibly important, but your family has known you your whole life. And family, well, most families, will always be there for you.

Nothing is more important than family.

So, I think I won’t wait another five years to make a trip up to Aurora. Who knows, if I don’t wait too long, maybe next time all my cousins might even recognize me!

David Thill is a senior journalism major and can be reached at

[email protected] or 581-7942.