With three sets of grandparents, over 10 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins I've never had what I would consider a small extended family. It certainly wasn't the biggest family around, but not the smallest either.

One thing is for sure - it should be a bigger family. But due to one stupid reasons, or another, my grandparents (my mom's parents) had chosen to disconnect from their families. What that meant was that mom and her four siblings never really knew their aunts and uncles (I believe between them my grandparents had 9 or 10 siblings) or their cousins.

Looking back, I wasn't aware of a lack of extended family, but I now know it is something that has always saddened my mom and her brothers and sisters.

When I began working with a bank in Central Indiana, right near where my grandmother's family had settled, my mom told me if I ever went to visit she was going to tag along. Which is why last week, my mom and I packed up our bags and flew to Indiana for a week.

I was going to work. Mom was going to meet her family.

While I worked, Mom re-connected with her cousins, explored the local cemeteries and met her last living aunt (who she didn't even know was alive before Wednesday!). After work she and I drove by the original family home in Marion, Indiana.

On Friday, I joined in the fun, and discovered that I had been missing something special - my family. In a very large group of strangers (one of mom's cousins has 9 kids!!), I found faces I recognized. People who spoke with the same cadence as my recently deceased grandmother. Cousins of my mother who looked strikingly like my grandmother, or my other aunts. And most amazingly, a group of people who seemed to miss my family, even though most of us had never met.

We left Indiana early on Saturday morning, with more than just great memories - we left, with a much, much bigger family.

And a desire to return to a place that I can now call "home."

This is my mom and her cousins.

Just a small part of my new extended family.