We just got back from our bi-yearly Holmes Family Reunion, a gathering of the families of the 11 children of Arthur Lisle and Lucy Holmes. There are 50 grandchildren, 109 great grandchildren, and we are still counting the great, greats. After thinking about it (more like obsessingly analyzing it), here are my personal reflections...I wish I were better about making conversation. It really is an area I'm lacking in. Some people have the knack for it but I'm definitely not gifted in that category. I seriously doubt that anyone left the reunion thinking, "Wow, I sure wish I could have had a conversation with Sherilyn." However, there were lots of people I wish I would have been able to talk to. It truly is an art form to be able to conversate easily and with anyone. This is something I will work on in the next two years and I vow to be better at our Colorado reunion in 2010.
So, I felt a little sad after the reunion thinking (actually obsessing over) that I had very few conversations that weren't just fluff. I should have gone deeper with people and in turn, been more real with them. We all want to be "known", to belong to something bigger than our own little world, and today (after a week of analysis :-), I realized that these people, my relatives, do know me. It doesn't matter how bad of a conversationalist I am. It doesn't matter that we only see each other every two years. It doesn't matter that they don't know all the inner workings of my mind. They have known me since I was born. They know my parents, my siblings, my husband, and my children. They know where I come from.....and, that is enough. For we are family and that is a bond that cannot be broken and I will be comforted by that. I found this quote that says it better than I ever could.
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. A person needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born. ~Pearl S. Buck
2 comments:
You are one of the greatest conversationalist I know. In fact, I find myself wishing I was more like you in that way. So I was a little surprised by this post. And, I always look forward to visiting with you at family get togethers!
Lisa
I agree with Lisa! You are one of the easiest people to talk to that I know.
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