Just Dreaming
Sitting on the deck, the sun past its zenith and the beginning of the
evening coolness can be felt in the gentle breeze...a quiet Sunday
afternoon and a chance to spend some precious time just dreaming. The
time we get in this world to just let our minds drift and explore is so
often limited by just living...these moments truly are precious.
As
I sit here...scotch in a glass beside the computer...I find myself
reflecting on friendship and family. Later today I am fixing dinner,
Sunday dinner for the family, and although I know what it is we will be
eating and I know how to fix it I am still thinking there is something
missing. Oh, I know what it is. I'm thinking that only half of the
family will be here. Dinner on Sunday's with my daughter, her husband,
and my grandson (soon to be two grandsons) is common. It is not an
every Sunday thing but it happens often enough so as to be part of the
routine of life. My son...he will be asleep half way around the world
when we "tuck in" for dinner. His wife is, no doubt, exhausted from
being pregnant too and having to take care of their two year old...the
two of them will be hopefully dreaming of sugar plums as well. I will
miss having them at the table tonight. They will be here in a couple of
weeks for a visit and with luck we will all be at one table for dinner
that Sunday but until then...after that as well...they will be missed.
But
then I got to thinking as I was writing that, there are others we miss
at the table too. Family is often more than just the immediate, it is
an extended family, and in many ways it includes a circle of friends as
well. What is it about sharing a table of food, a bottle of wine, a cup
of coffee that brings us so close, that makes us family. I know it is
not the food, the wine or the coffee that binds us. Some would say it
is the blood that streams through our veins that makes us family. But
to them I would say you have missed the best part of "family." It is
not just some twist of the Watsons and Cricks that make us family. The
ties that bind us to others are much different and much more complicated
in some ways.
Growing up my cousin had a neighbor who was
as much part of the family as anyone. I see her more often than some of
my "real" cousins. I remember her mother sitting at the table playing
poker with my mom and my aunts as if she was the fourth sister. My mom
had neighbors, they came to the house and had coffee after we left for
school. They shared recipes and we kids played but they never became
part of the family. I wonder what made the difference.
I sit here feeling the breeze gently blowing across the deck and I wonder about others in that category. Since we have grown up we had friends in our lives that became part of the family. They became aunts and uncles and their kids became cousins to our children. They became part of our lives. Some remain and some have drifted apart over time because of numerous moves, changes in our lives. Some remain...why the difference.
I have had the chance to reconnect with my brother in the past several months. We were estranged for more than 20 years but he reached out earlier this year and we have been having conversations via telephone every few weeks. He called yesterday. He is going through a not so pleasant time in his life. His wife packed up and moved several states away and asked for a divorce. He is not wanting this. She is adamant. They had a disagreement yesterday and he reached out to me to talk. It was a wonderful experience. We were not close growing up...five years separate our births. We had a "falling out" when our father died. It was actually not either of us that caused the problem...it was his wife. She made any connection between us difficult at best and sometimes down right impossible. She is gone...why was it so long for us to get back together.
Connectedness
to others is more than just sharing a good thing. It is part of who we
are and how we are made. So I am contemplating...dreaming...about
sending him an airline ticket to come back to see us and the family. A
chance to reconnect...maybe just a chance to finally connect. He lives
in rural Montana, I live in the big city. We are different, in oh so
many ways, but we are family.
So I sit here
dreaming...thinking about a world that might be different. When i think
about who is sitting at the family table with me I think we need a big
table. It includes the obvious, my son, my daughter, their spouses,
their children, my mother-in-law, whom I have known longer than my own
mother and my brother. I think of my cousin Windy and her family, there
are probably a couple of my wife's siblings that would be at that
table, though if left up to me probably only a couple of them. There
are nieces and their husbands and kids who have become close over the
years and would be thought of as part of that family. And then there is
a group of people who share a common bond. They are all friends,
friends for whom I would do anything in my power, anytime and anywhere.
They know who they are...they too would be considered part of the
family table in my mind. All in it would be a table big enough for a
castle, it would look like a state dinner at Buckingham Palace. But it
would be a table of great importance, at least to me.
So I
dream of a getting everyone together. I dream about dinners like those
when my mother and her sisters were alive. I dream of a raucous party.
I dream of the laughter, the joking, the good times, the sharing, the
closeness, and the love that would be in that room. It is a dream that
brings a sense of happiness, peacefulness and great joy to my heart to
think about.