Family Foundations

The older we get, the more things we lose … car keys, sunglasses, height, memory, to name a few.  The other things we tend to lose are much more precious … pets, friends, parents, family.  The older I get the more I cherish the latter. We all do.  Earlier this summer my family lost one of my cousins and our hearts are broken. We may not have seen a lot of each other in the recent past, but there is another hole in our family and we will never be the same.

It saddens me for opportunities lost and memories that will not me made that would have included her.  While talking with my other cousins, one of them mentioned that we need to start making plans to get together again instead of waiting for another family funeral.  One of them said that if we don’t start doing something, our family is going to fall apart.  The torch doesn’t pass from one generation to another if you are passive.  It only passes if you make the effort.

Today my cousins are coming to my house.  It’s just a small group, but we feel like it is a start.  We have common childhood memories and we all have different stories about the same people and I can’t wait to reconnect.  In this day and age of technology and social media it’s easy to become lazy about making time for the important people in your life.  REAL time. But if we don’t make the effort, then the measure of what is lost will be gone forever.

I hope that one day we will be able to rebuild again what our parents made for us. The foundation of a family.  We all already have the immediate family foundations, but I I’m talking about the larger picture … generations of the same family who know each other, love each other and who are there for each other.  Forever.