This is a weekly series I’m writing in 2016 to focus on one of my three words for the year: beauty. Each Monday a post will explore some new aspect of beauty.

There’s this scene in ‘While You Were Sleeping’ in which the family, along with Lucy, is sitting around opening Christmas presents. Everyone is talking at once, exclaiming about watches and forgotten uncles. Lucy just sits back clutching a present and taking it all in, because this is a first for her. Having lost both her parents and not having siblings or cousins, she’s alone in the world. But for the first time she feels like she belongs. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. It’s easy to remember the greatness of family around the holiday season. It’s also easy to remember the craziness and that strangely interesting uncle. But often, after the shine of the holiday season has passed, it’s harder to remember all the warm fuzzies family gives us. But there’s a beauty in the family - one that can’t be seen or understood in any other context but with the people we hold nearest and dearest.

I spent this past week really thinking about family and giving thanks for the close-knit nature of mine. One of my siblings got some pretty difficult, life-changing news last week. And it hit all of us. Hard. As soon as tests results were in and suspicions were confirmed, the text messages and phone calls began flying. No one was left out. Not the brother who lives thousands of miles away, not dad who was attending a class on the East Coast. We were all in. The night the news struck, everyone who lived within driving distance convened on the house. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something we set up weeks in advance. Our being together was driven by a need to be together. To offer comfort and support, even if that just meant joking around and telling stories that were useless other than to take all our minds off of what had just been pronounced.

So while I was sitting curled up on the couch with three of my siblings, the others in various states of lounging around the living room, I suddenly felt like I was transferred to that scene in ‘While You Were Sleeping,’ almost like I was watching all this take place from the outside. And I was moved by the beauty surrounding me. No, we weren’t in formal attire; half of my family was in pajamas. No, we weren’t waxing philosophical on the meaning of life; there was just a perfect mixture of laughter about nothing serious and tears that were absolutely serious. No, we weren’t holding hands but we were together as only family can be, with pillows flying and hugs to be had, with a dog that wanted to be in the mix of everyone plopping down on our feet, with the Christmas tree glowing in the background but not many other lights. It wasn’t a perfect Norman Rockwell moment, but it was beautiful.

There’s a beauty in the family. A beauty in knowing you have a group of people that have your back. A beauty in knowing you can cry on their shoulders and they will let your tears fall, offer you a tissue and try to crack a joke to lighten the mood. A beauty in having people who will drop everything to just be with you, nothing planned, nothing expected in return. A beauty in knowing there are people who will be strong when you are weak, and who will need you to be strong when they are weak.