This family journey is a two-part / heart felt experience: the family in the moment and the family of our past. For my wife and I this month of June laces together the passage from one place to another as we embrace family relationships.
Last weekend some forty family members of my wife's side gathered at our youngest daughter and son in-law's home in Jacksonville to embrace and refresh our ties. In another week, we will gather in the metro-east area for the 67th Annual Roustio Reunion where we anticipate a number near 70 to reunite.
My observations on these family reunions are expected. Over time fewer people attend these gatherings due to the mobility factor and event conflicts. I can recall in simpler times, those family reunions were significant calendar dates equal to July 4th and other traditional celebrations. Once upon a time that Roustio Reunion numbered nearly 200 attendees. I believe most family reunions are beginning to look like Sunday morning worship service...you know, an older dwindling crowd.
Sandwiched between these two family-coming-together-occasions, we called upon a more spiritual family love when last week we drove to the metro-east (home) area and joined with my brother, Tom and wife Vicky to make visits to family internment sites. Their eleven year old grandson, Austin accompanied us much to his chagrin. My wife and I have always felt a profound need to visit the final resting places of the family loved ones who touched and molded our lives as we shared intermingled parts of the journey. As I stood before my parents crypt, The awareness of others nearby faded as my private recollections and thoughts literally flew across the many years. My head became a swirling whirlpool of sacred memories. Visions of faces and sounds of laughter became surreal.
I find that living a healthy and glorious 'now' is greatly connected to a loving nurturing yesterday. I have been richly blessed.
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