Family Time

We forgot to bring our Christmas present to my grandfather when we went to his home a few days ago and so my father suggested that with the help with one of my brothers, we make an extra trip to his home to deliver it.

It's been raining a lot in Cincinnati, all day yesterday, heavy today, probably more to come.  So we drove through the grey rainy highway, windshields wipers and frosted windows that wouldn't clear, out to Mt.Healthy.

We stepped into the living room, filled with geodes from his son, a geologist, a few telescopes from his interest in the stars, a bonsai, pictures my late grandmother took in Kenya that still hang above the television, less a memento perhaps, than a lingering.  There is a drawer from a type set machine that hangs on the wall and serves as display shelves of sorts, a point of pride from his childhood, when his father had a printing press in their home.

A retired minister, he is a leader in conversational practice.  Listening astutely, opening with questions that might lead to more information about the state of someone's life.  And he shares with us his memories that pertain to our current lives, his trips to England, his children's involvement with music, his own attempts as such.  And then there is a mix of other sharing, experiences from his ministry, glimpses of his character.  He still speaks to and counsels many people by phone, he is a very trustworthy person and reflective, either by nature or by profession.

I have always wondered where he came from.  An only child, raised in a home of parents and grandparents, carrying something learned from them or somewhere else, forward.  If it is not possible to understand something concrete in him or to know his parents, it is certainly possible to see the value of self-reliance he has passed along to the people in his family.

We shouldn't take for granted the opportunities that we have to be with family.  We are a part of one another and can teach one another as mirrors of ourselves.  Sometimes we try to evade it, but when we approach one another, what we are avoiding often changes and something opens.  And what cannot be amended is something from which there is much to be learned, something of compassion for one another and ourselves.