DESCRIBE YOUR FAMILY

According to the dictionary, the definition of a family is a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.

An Intelligencer reporter, Christina Kristofic, is asking us to send our description of what our “family” is for a piece she wants to write as the World Meeting of Family approaches here in Philadelphia.  When I first read her question my first thought was, depends on what stage of life you are talking about.

My childhood was not and is not anything I want a do over in.  Getting as far away from those times has been my life long quest.  It is a time period where the world “normal” had profound meaning for me as I did not believe I was “normal” in any fashion.

My “normal” did not start until I met and married my late husband of 45 years.  Together we created the family I could only dream about as a child.  Four children in 4 1/2 years made for a fast, compact, and full existence.  I worked hard at “being a good mother”, even when my own children didn’t appreciate it.  My husband’s family were kind, loving and taught me the meaning of unconditional love.  Family gatherings carried a high priority and one did not miss the event unless it was a life and death situation.  

The wonderful thing about the family we created as a couple is that our table always made room for those without family connections.  A tradition that carries on today.  Our son and his wife host the family Thanksgiving celebration, and every year he expects a call from one of us asking, “I have a friend who….” all the while counting on the fact that their answer would be yes.  Of course last year’s 27 people at the dinner table may have pushed the hospitality to the limit!

Today, as a widowed senior,  family life has taken on another meaning.  One where family gatherings are sandwiched in-between a lot of quiet lonely times.  When I am with my children and their families I see through them, the fulfilled life I once had and long for even today.  My husband’s illness and early death did not allow for us to have that special “empty nest” experience I hear many talk about. Children grown with families of their own, grandchildren entering their teenage years, making it that I am just an old person who visits now and then, leaves me searching for any purpose in my existence today.   

So when Ms. Kristofic asks what comes to mind when I hear the word family, I am carried back to my fulfilling days of being a wife and mother, surrounded by wonderful neighbors and friends and experience the joy of knowing that through our love and experience, we have passed on that same sense of purpose and tradition of a loving family to our children.  That in the end fulfills my ultimate purpose.