Togetherness

 

This past weekend, my bride and I hosted a graduation party for our daughter. I was in a nostalgic mood the entire weekend as we went through the graduation ceremony, got the house set up for family guests, and looking at photo albums that showed the various stages of my little girl's life. I'm not going to lie, I broke down a few times just thinking about how time has flown by, but those were mixed in with tears of joy because of the awesome human being she has grown into. I began to think about what the next few years had in store for us as a family and I had an overwhelming sense of peace come over me as I reflected because as my own parents and siblings showed up to the party, I thought about how we have managed to stick together for so long.

When my family and I moved to Arkansas three years ago, I knew there were going to be moments that were going to be rough. My parents live in Arizona and my three sisters live in Nebraska. Now that I was in Arkansas, I knew that seeing them all on a regular basis was going to be tough. When you also throw into the mix that we are all very independent people who can be overly stubborn at times, you can imagine how coordinating holiday gatherings and travel plans might be a difficult process. Through it all, however, we stuck together.

As I sat and watched my parents and two of my sisters play a game of cribbage, I realized that I hadn't seen them in a very long time (a global pandemic has a way of doing that). But, no matter how long it had been, we were able to pick right up where we started and we immediately connected like it was just yesterday that we had seen one another. I then looked over my shoulder at my daughter and her group of friends, her brother, and her cousins were congregated around our living room table engaged in a wild game of Telestrations. Their laughs, stories, and connectedness with one another made me think about how their togetherness would be impacted over the course of the next few years as they go off and do their own things. At first, I was a little sad for my daughter because things will never truly be the same again as she leaves high school, but I was then reminded that she will carry a piece of all those people in her heart wherever she goes, just like I do for my family.

The interesting thing about togetherness is that you really don't have to be together to experience it. The shared experiences, memories, laughs, and sorrows will always bind us together no matter where we go. Togetherness is a lifetime accumulation of relationships that stick with us and help us get through the toughest of times. While we all may be very unique and revel in our own individuality, we are better when we are together and for that, I am grateful.   

 

#OwnYourEpic #FORGE