When is your family "finished"?

Let me introduce myself. My name is Amy Jones. I was born in June,1967. I am the daughter of Melvin and Rita Kohn. I am the mother of Kenny, Abby, Melissa and Grace. I am the wife of Brice Jones and the sister to Dan, Tracy, Andy..and Keith. My family is my life and what I live for. I just keep adjusting my vision of family to include all the new suprises this big, wonderful world has to offer.

Over the last few weeks I've asked myself this question many times. "When is a family finished, done, no mas, the fat lady has sung!! As a busy mom of 3, my husband and I said our family was finished only to find out that we were wrong,we we were missing our little Gracie Girl and she was what made our family complete. I never thought that I needed Gracie until she came and turns out she's the only one that even looks like me!!
As a sister I thought that book was written about 40 years ago. I was the sister of Dan, Tracy and Andy. That's it. Complete. I guess I was wrong again. Turns out the ink isn't even dry on the pages. This book now seems to have no ending. I just keep turning the pages to see where this all ends up. I have laid to rest a brother only and gained a new one all in the last year. Both as earth shattering as the other, both as natural as the other. A loss that seems insurmountable and a gain that is neverending. In one fail swoop I have changed from a sister of a few to a family that is continuously growing. (And they say that kids nowadays are disrespectful and are lacking manners compared to how dignified and proper people were"in the old days". Mom and Dad, you have me beat by a MILLION!!)
Turns out we really have no control over how the old whipper snappers conducted themselves way back when. Seems that there was a lot of whipping and snapping going on and not enough
thinking and respecting. I am at the same time embarrassed and outraged that our father, Melvin Kohn, knowingly had a child and CHOSE not to be in his life and yet if he was the man I would have wanted him to be would have meant that I wouldn't exist. Mel would have never met Rita, his nurse when he had his first heart attack and literally married the first woman he saw and quickly spit out 4 kids in about 6 years. He was my hero and now I feel his dishonor. I still love our Dad but now I know he was just man. He made mistakes and I believe he and Beatrice and Rita and Andy are up there trying to make this right. And so we will. What they couldn't do while here on Earth we will do for them. We are a family. With all the imperfections a family could possibly have. Our parents made mistakes but we aren't them. Just as Grace wasn't a mistake, Keith isn't a mistake, my brothers and sisters (??!) aren't mistakes. I'm not a mistake. My family will never be finished. I am a family of many.