My experiences in family business have been very mixed. It is very difficult to separate business and non-business issues. I initially (and for a long time) had a very difficult time dealing with my father’s business criticism in a business-like way. I have chronicled the horrific - and perhaps unsolvable- trouble Peter and I have had with his mother. And we have also employed nearly all of my siblings (and cousin-siblings) at one time or another.

Most of the time family and business is akin to mixing gasoline and fire with a little bit of oil thrown in for fun. But I continue to be pleasantly surprised by my Jewelry Diva, Miss Cate. I call her my Jewelry Diva because I have yet to meet a young woman of her age and means who has the killer jewelry she has. I have given her many of her gems and her boyfriend always invests in the finest for her too. Something about her makes you want to do that for her.

Miss Cate, the Great, is a Graduate Student who is unwilling to sacrifice her vision of her thesis for anyone. Thus she suffers from the cruel bureaucracy of school. The ignorance of her advisors prevents her from writing a nonfiction version of Sarah Dunant’s lovely historical novels for her thesis. And for my own selfish reasons, I am secretly pleased.

Not because I want her to fail, not for a second. No, I want her to work in our shop for as long as possible. She has become one of our finest jewelers. I know she is on borrowed time but I can have my secret hopes that she will stay. I am infinitely happy for a variety of reasons. The first is that she is now a good jeweler who has the potential to become very good. The second is that I always look forward to working when she is there because we can chat and have a good time while we are working. And I always enjoy chatting with Miss Cate. She is surprising and funny and sometimes a little bit ditzy (in an endearing way) and she is not adverse to self-deprecating humor, which I think is a sign of a very strong character.

I think we have come through fire as step-siblings and despite being a little bit blackened on the edges, we enjoy each other very much. She is one of my most trusted confidantes and I appreciate her insight. And despite all of that, she allows me to be a supervisor to her at the shop and always takes my business role at face value. Somehow she has miraculously managed to separate our relationship from what I need to do to be a manager.

Despite the fact that she is far younger than me, she demonstrates a great maturity in the shop. She has found a way to reconcile our family relationship within the business and also become one of our most valued employees. I am always hesitant to offer her advice because her path is her own. I really just want to offer support and be her back-up because I support her absolutely. Mostly I just want our own individual journeys in this life to move forward together because I love and enjoy her so much.

Miss Cate, the Great, is a blessing and proves that family business is an investment that is worthwhile and pays dividends beyond your wildest dreams.