Jul 24, 2010

Posted by in Family Life | 0 Comments

It’s All in the Family

Today, I had the pleasure of attending a family reunion. This was for my dad’s side of the family, the Zappavigna’s. Dad was from a family of six children.

As with many families, my paternal side had experienced some unfortunate separations over the years. Earlier this year, my Uncle Mario died. At his services, his children, along with many of my cousins, my siblings and I, lamented over how many years had been wasted due to misunderstandings about things no one even recalled. Thus, the reunion was born.

Most of my own siblings were there, along with our cousins, spouses and many of our children. Notably missing were my dad, his two brothers and one sister (a third sister had died years ago at a young age). This was the first big family gathering since my own dad died nearly two years ago. I will admit there were many moments when I truly missed him today in ways that I had not for a while.

My Aunt Vi is the lone remaining sibling; she and my Uncle John both attended today’s party, along with my mom and my Aunt Lil (Aunt Lil was married to my dad’s brother, Enzo). These four are now the “older” generation of our family. I felt blessed to have them all together today!

Somehow, my sisters and I have turned into our mom by encouraging everyone to pose and smile for pictures! My cousin, Kathy, first gathered all of our children together for a group picture. The funny comments were sure flying! One that stuck out in my head was when my brother yelled, “Turn and introduce yourself to the cousin you didn’t know you had!” Silly, and yet, true! It was a pleasure to watch the children of my cousins get to know one another a little bit at a pleasant event.

Once the children were tortured with the flash of camera’s, it was time for my generation to pose. We passed our camera’s on to the kids and asked them to snap away. I think they did a fair job of capturing all of us. I am still not sure when it is that we all got a little grayer, a little rounder, and for some of us, a bit thinner up on top! It didn’t seem to matter as we shared stories only family can tell: Remember the Christmas parties at Grandma’s four-room house? Remember that little train set she had? Oh, that magnolia tree on the side of the house…that was beautiful! Wow, can you make Grandma’s Easter bread? And so it went…

The posed photos ended with a round of pictures of all of the spouses of the cousins. They were good sports about taking the shots, even though Mother Nature had decided to sprinkle a few more rain drops on us!

All in all, it was an enjoyable day. Good company, good food, good times! May God allow my family to continue to celebrate many more reunions and happy times.

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