I will begin by saying that I know no two families are alike, and sometimes prior circumstances complicate relationships in extreme ways. I suppose that the second part of my first sentence is one of the reasons why I feel so compelled to write this. It is my sincere desire to not offend anyone, but I think that what I am about to tell you is necessary.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about being more than a millennial, and that my life experience has made me who I am. While that's the truth, it isn't the whole truth. My family upbringing has a great deal to do with the person I have become. It isn't just because of my parents; it is because of generations instilling the same values throughout every generation. Now here comes the sad part of my story, and the part I want everyone out there to hear as if I screamed it from the rooftops.

I went to my first funeral when I was two weeks old. It was for my Nan, a woman that I would never know. She was killed by cancer. She held me barely more than three times, and there are only a handful of photos of us together. She told my father that I was her Angel, that God sent down from Heaven to make room for her, and to help our family through losing her.

I've heard a few stories of how my family was crying, but stopped when they hugged me and gave me a kiss. Since she died so soon after my birth, I feel a twinge of sadness as I get older every year, because it's another year that she's been gone. But how can I miss something that was never mine to have? The only good thing to come out of that experience is that my father and I are extraordinarily close. He was my first best friend.

My grandfathers are slightly more elusive to me. My Pop, Nan's husband, had already started with dimentia when I was finally old enough to have strong memories of him. What I do remember hurts me to think of him struggling to find his words and his memories. He passed away before I started high school. I think that the 12 years he spent away from his lady became to much for his heart to bear.

My Pop-Pop was a soft-spoken man with a wonderful sense of humor that I wish I had seen more of. He could drop a one-liner that would make your mouth drop, and cared for every car he had like it was his baby. The only thing that he was more tedious with was his lawn. He was forever trying to get the patches of brown to turn green, so much so that my uncle placed a bag of grass seed in the casket with him. He passed when I was halfway through high school.

My Meems made sure that my little brother and I knew enough love for two grandmothers. I cherished every day that I spent with her. We had many trips to the hair salon and shop-til-we-drop trips at the mall close to her house. Her house was always one thousand degrees no matter what time of year, and she decorated for every holiday no matter how small, but that was okay. It made being with her even more special. She passed away when I was a Sophomore at Immaculata, right before finals week.

I arranged for all of my finals to be taken early so that I could go home and be with my mom that year. I was the only one that was in a place to do that, but that isn't the only reason I came home. I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with losing the only grandmother I had known in my life. She suffered in the end, just like my Nan did. But this time I had a front row seat that I wish I could forget. I went with my mother every day to my grandmother's suddenly cold and bare house. I helped clean out every room, and soothe my mothers tears every time she found something that tore her heart open. I learned more about my grandparents in those two weeks than I had in my 20 years with them.

Did anyone notice the trend in my paragraphs? Each was varied in details. You want to know why?

Because on my father's side of the family I am somewhere around the 34th grandchild. I never really stood a chance of having a relationship with those grandparents. I was the fifth grandchild on my moms side, so I stood a slightly better chance.

My roommate told me last year that knowing me and what I had lost throughout my life made her want to reconnect with her grandparents. And she did. Now they have a blossoming relationship.

But I know that there are so many people out there that take their grandparents, and other family for that matter, for granted. It makes my heart hurt that what I wish I had, other people cast aside. I wonder every day if I am the kind of person that my grandparents could be proud of. Because I honestly never knew them well enough to know for sure.

Please, take my advice: Don't dismiss the phone call or pass up the opportunity to visit. You never know when the last time the phone or doorbell will ring.