Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Family is one of nature’s masterpieces. Candace Cameron Blue

This is a year for weddings and family celebrations. Yesterday was the bridal shower of my daughter-in-law-to-be. This is one of four bridal showers her aunt will attend this year for her nieces.

It was a lovely event and so good to see people in person, laugh, and talk. When I see my daughter-in-law-to-be with her family a pang of guilt hits me as I realize by moving far away from family my son and daughter were deprived of that close connection to their grandmother, grandfather, cousins, aunts, and uncles they would have had.

Cross country visits aren’t the same but they have been wonderful and created great memories. Mom and Dad had already left the farm before my kids came along so they never had a chance to visit the farm I grew up on.

I said to a friend yesterday, “When we were looking for a husband we didn’t consider the family we were marrying into and what an impact it would have on our lives.” My mother-in-law is wonderful, as was my father-in-law now passed, and my sister-in-law and I have a wonderful relationship. We are truly blessed when we get along with our family and extended families.

As I look at families I can see how the matriarch of the family brings everyone together. We owe a lot to the grandmothers who do so much to bring everyone together, preparing the food, hosting the dinners, being the bridge that binds the generations.

The most important thing is family. Career is not waiting for you to come home. Money won’t wipe your tears and glory won’t embrace you at night. Unknown

We don’t have to be grandmothers to be the matriarchs; we have to be the ones that host the events that bring people together. Nothing happens unless someone makes it happen. Yesterday was a lot of work for the bride-to-be and her family. It was a lot of fun, and although I’m sure they were tired at the end of it, pure joy shone on their faces.

It is a great joy to love the person our son or daughter is marrying and bringing into the family. Our relationship with our in-laws will impact our lives in big ways. Even the most harmonious family will have disagreements and not see all things the same. That is to be expected, we are individuals after all.

The turbulence under the placid look of a family makes for the best stories. Keeping that turbulence out of view is one of the problems we have in families. It is where people feel they can’t be themselves, they are expected to be, do, or behave in certain ways and this can lead to lies, deception, and secrets as they hide their real selves from view to be acceptable.

Fitting in and living life to the beat of our own drum is a fine line we walk. Families are not homogeneous and as we become a varied group of different hues, ideologies, and values, we find we can all get along because the important values, of love, respect, togetherness, and family belong to all of us.

Never sacrifice three things: Your family, your heart, or your dignity. Unknown

I think the most important thing is your integrity. Your family, your health. Rest of the things, you can experiment with. A. R. Rahman

Our family is a circle of strength of love with every birth and every union the circle grows. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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