Tonight we board a plane and travel to Ambergris Caye, a water taxi ride away from Belize City. My daughter Sarah, will meet us in Houston before we journey on to Belize. Our immediate family, the three of us, minus my son, will be attending the wedding of our nephew Shaun. Destination weddings are popular now with the 20+ set. We would go anywhere to be attending this event. My partner's first family (mother, father, brother and sister) are all deceased and he is a sole survivor. Too many heart heavy events have preceded this upcoming wedding day and we welcome the chance to all be together to celebrate with joy and happiness. Last summer we were in Idaho for our daughter's wedding and this summer for Shaun and Jordan!
In the graduate classes I taught many teachers came from large extended families, who were all living in Buffalo, in close proximity to one another. I listened to their stories of attending obligatory Sunday mass, followed (more importantly) by the obligatory weekly pasta dinner at Grandma's house with 40 of their closest relatives. Some of them had rejected "too much" family, moved away to teach in southern or western states, only to return back home. Their eyes would fill with tears as they described how they had missed their family and were homesick on a daily basis. As they talked about being around family again they seemed completely comfortable in themselves....knowing you can go away and you can come home again.
When my own children were growing up we were isolated and living away from grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We had to travel a minimum of 5 hours to see our nearest relatives. We did our best to visit and make relationships with family a priority. Visits to Shaun and his parents, Maureen and Bruce's home in Indiana, were a summer priority and meeting half-way for a long weekend together during the school year became a routine. We created "family" relationships with some close friends and invited people who were without family to our home at holiday times to bring more of a celebration to the day. We started our own traditions (like going out for Chinese food on Christmas Day). But as the years continued our own family numbers became smaller and it was hard "not to notice".
Both my life partner and I grew up living near our extended families and have shared stories of both the functionality and dysfunction that is part of that package. We agree we missed the abundance of that good and bad family stuff raising our own children. There was some but our kids focus was on us and all our craziness .....It would have been nice to spread it out and give us a break!
Back in a few days with pictures of our family gathering.
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