The Fabric of Family
Another year has passed, another Christmas into my memory bank of special times and missed opportunities. Our family gatherings have become reunions with son, daughters, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, grand-daughters, grandsons, brother, sister, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews. We're rapidly reaching the point where no single house is large enough to handle the guests, no meal robust enough to satisfy the appetites. Christmas has become a week-long event and I love it.The "Empty Nest"
Each holiday, I eagerly anticipate having the kids "home" and the family together once again. All parents appreciate those special feelings of elation, pride, and sadness when a child leaves the "nest". Each time triggers conflicting emotions - while there is certainly more freedom for the parents, there are also measures of loneliness, nostalgia, and trepidation about the future. The majority of our adulthoods are centered around children, whether changing diapers or watching the clock until the last teenager is home and in bed.The time with our children is so short. Yesterday I was going to soccer games and complaining about bikes in the driveway; today I sit and hope that the mailman will bring a letter or the phone will ring so I know each child has made it through another day safely and happily.
Parents whose kids have grown face a bewildering assortment of choices: What and when to eat? To eat alone or together? What to watch on television? When to go to bed? For more than 35 years, our activities were scheduled around the comings and goings of children. In the beginning, there were just the two of us. The there was three, four, five and six. We learned to be a "family".
A second generation - a daughter-in-law, then a grand-daughter - began while we were still in the midst of our raising our last two kids. Due to the economy, older kids moved back as younger kids left home for college. We had to adjust to living, not always gracefully, with adults that were similar to us in some ways and aliens in others. We survived, with an occasional bump and bruise, and more memories to fill the lonely nights ahead.
Together at Last!
We're not the same people that fell in love on the University of Texas campus a half century before. Maybe a little smarter, certainly a little heavier and grayer, with no more stars in our eyes, we've learned that life is not a fairy tale, that bad things can happen to good people, and, sometimes, keepin' on keepin' on is the best you can do. Both of us are more secure in our own skins, more comfortable with who we are and what we're about, but each of us is less flexible, less willing to accommodate the other just because we share a history and live in the same house. Life has taken on a new hue, brightened by the excitement of rediscovery with the occasional presence of a darker pathos when togetherness rubs raw.Holidays are opportunities to renew old memories and confirm emotions which, though always present, are rarely manifested. The rough pride in a father's teasing, the hugs between mother and daughter, the sharing between brother and sisters or multiple generations are the ties that bind us together and makes life worth living. As we age, and family members move apart physically and psychologically, the occasions we meet become fewer and fewer, leaving us to remember the warmth and love of past Holidays. 2013 will always be special to me, but none more so than the next one this year and those to follow. Blessings and Happy Memories to us all.