Gatherings

Whether it is just the time of year, or the holidays, I have been thinking about something lately.  What are the reasons families and friends gather? Groups come together for the absolute best of times: birthdays, anniversaries, commencements, weddings - you know the list. Lately however, I have watched a few gatherings which are a more difficult, and they have made me think.

For all of us, there have been times when family members are sick or dying. If not yet, there will be these times. They are simply unavoidable - as inevitable as taxes.

Throughout the last three or four weeks I've watched the house across the street. We knew one of the members of the household was fighting an end of life disease. We just weren't sure when it would happen. Then the increase in traffic alerted us to the fact that the time had come. Sara did a good job of staying connected during this time. I did not. Anyway, cars of family and friends have been across the street for the last several days, and I wonder about all of the conversations. When we meet, one of the standards things said is, "We shouldn't wait for a time like this to get together. We should get together more often."

This is what I have really been thinking about. Is this the right approach? Is this the attitude we should take at these times? I think it is not, and I will give you a couple of examples of another way to handle this. Several years ago, I went to a family gathering in What Cheer - a celebration of life for a member of my family that had passed - and we were out at the cemetery to bury the ashes. After a bit of conversation and a prayer or two, the time came to actually handle the burial.  Well, nobody brought a shovel. Now while there are families and circumstances where this would have caused an absolute meltdown, not my family. A member of my family just went to his truck, pulled out the long-handled shovel and we continued the ceremony. We all laughed, because it was funny and touching.

Fast forward to last fall - same general part of the world. We were in Thornburg for my cousin John's funeral. The crowd was enormous as John was one of those people everyone knew. They had the family visitation in the Tri-County High school in the common space at the front of the building. When I got to Berdette, John's wife, the first thing I did was make her laugh. I told her that John Ogden was the only person in my life who could get me to voluntarily walk into the Tri-County High School. For those of you not from our part of Iowa, Sigourney and Tri-County were not what you would call the best of friends, in fact, the tension and rivalry between the schools was palpable when students or graduates from the schools were in the same place.

I tell all of these stories about family gatherings for the same reason. There are good reasons to get people together and there are other times people have historically thought of as "bad" times to get people together. When I walked out of John's gathering, the second thought touched me. Yes, I will miss John, no question, but I had the opportunity to see some of the people in my life I rarely see.  Why is this considered a bad moment? Why not just see it for what it is, time to spend with family and friends. We make promises to schedule something, but the truth is, the minute we leave, our life pours in on us and another year passes before we know it.

Okay, I've wandered all over the place with this, and feel like I may have not made the point I wanted to make. The next time my family gets together, for whatever reason, I will be completely respectful of the situation, but will also take the time to hug my cousins, talk to my aunts, and do those things that makes us family. I will enjoy the opportunity to see and be with family. These people can drive me the craziest, but they have always been in my life. I need to take advantage of the fact they still are.

That's what I am thinking about today. I hope it gives you something to contemplate. Next up, I have a great thought about the size of your shop, and what this means to others. I look forward to writing it and I hope you look forward to reading it.