As I begin this two week family vacation with family and friends arriving and leaving at various times, I sit here and watch the parade pass through. Over the years kids have grown-up, parents have aged, the house has been markedly improved, careers have changed, loss was suffered, gains were celebrated, and still the waves on East Sandwich Beach travel up and down the shoreline, ushering the tide in and out as if nothing ever changed at all.
Some of our children we haven’t seen in a few years because they were off on their own journey. Others have been here year in and year out. It is always a joy to have them return to the backyard fire and share what they found out there in that great big world.
Yesterday I finished Elin Hliderbrand’s Beautiful Day. I titled my post Silly Summer Read. Today, as I think about the undulating movement of my family, I’m reminded of a line spoken in the book by Roger the wedding planner, and I realize that the read was not so silly after all – but very real and enlightening. Roger said:
What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional.
I thought that was accurate. There is no idyllic family. Without a good measure of dysfunction to force people to communicate and face fears, love would not have a fertile ground in which to grow. When I look back at the antics of these characters I call my family, I become acutely aware that it is these very antics that caused us to grow into and around each other.
A musician friend of mine is releasing a new album soon (I will let you know the details when it’s available on iTunes) and one song has the line “we can talk at any time …we can laugh and we can cry…” and that, therein, is the essence of family.
And so, as another day goes by, I love my family and all their antics, I love this holiday that brings them to my door each Fourth of July, and..I have written.
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