Friday, October 2, 2015

Once Upon A Family

Day 2 and I'm still here. It helps that the weather is so atrocious nobody wants to leave the house. Except I'm meeting a friend for lunch today, so I'll be leaving the house.

Also, Daughter2 texted early this morning, and wondered if I could run by Walmart and pick up something she needed in her classroom. I might still have been asleep, but I dragged myself out of bed and got myself to the market and then on to her classroom. In the pouring rain.

Mothers are awesome aren't they?

Linking up with Five Minute Friday and the 31 Writing Challenge again today. If you're confused click here to clear the fog. I've got five minutes to do a little unedited
shudderwriting on today's prompt so let's get started.

Day 2-Family

Does your family have stories they tell over and over again? Are you the star of some of those stories? I think in every family small bits of life happen that mark a moment or some aspect of personality, and we tuck them away in a memory. We pull these stories out from time to time and re-tell them, sometimes making them larger and funnier than they originally were, but that's okay. We're family and we get it.

These stories they connect us to our people.

I was thinking about my own family stories, both the family I grew up in and the one I helped make, and a great big smile spread across my face. In fact a whole well of emotion bubbled up to the surface and tumbled out as I thought about the stories that have shaped our family.

I started to share one or two here, but something is lost in the explaining. These small glimpses into the past loom large within our own circle of family, but might feel a little clumsy and flat to someone who doesn't know the cast of characters intimately. It's impossible to capture the life and love and connection that fills all the space when we tell and re-tell them around our dinner table.

I'd love to tell you about the time my mom convinced my dad to take my brother's bedroom door off the hinges because she was certain he lay in there dying. You see, she'd spotted a teeny tiny drop of something red on the carpet coming up the stairs and she was convinced it was blood. It didn't help that my brother wasn't answering the door when she pounded on it and called his name.

But you don't know my mom. And you'd have to know my dad. And then finally seeing my brother, so very calm and cool in all circumstances, nary a scratch on him, wearing headphones and a puzzled look on his face....well, you had to be there.

And that's the thing about family.
No explanation needed.

"Family stories make the most valuable heirlooms."~ Author unknown 

6 comments:

  1. Mothers are awesome!!! Bless you! Great quote too!

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  2. I really like your post on family. Yes, we have all kinds of stories and it is so fun to get together and share them. It gets downright hysterical sometimes as some deny they even happened. Families are the best!!

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  3. Family stories are the best, aren't they? My family (the ones I raised) call my family (the one I was born into to) stories "Mom's War Stories"!!

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  4. oh my goodness can I ever relate to this? And your right. There are the stories that I share with my brothers and sisters, and the ones we share with the family we made. And goodness how many times have we heard them? And yet we still all laugh until we're sick. And once we get going there's almost no stopping us. Someone will say, "tell the one about dad and bicycle" [a particular favorite] and someone who might be in the other room will shout out, "wait..don't tell it till I get there." Even though of course they've heard it a million times, lol yes, family stories just can't be beat, and you really have to be part of the family to get it.

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  5. That story is hilarious, even if I don't know your family. You're right though, it isn't the same. When I tell my papaw stories that are completely outrageous, I can see on their face that it isn't completely registering the way I think it should.

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  6. Mom's are great. I was at the airport getting ready to fly to Canada when I realized I forgot my birth certificate (before the days when passports were required). My mom (and dad) got up at 4 am and drove an hour and a half to bring it to me. Thank God for Family. They never let us forget the "stupid" stuff we do :)

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