.JPG)
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I have the best family in the world. Hands down.
I’ve always known they were great, but their collective reaction to us going away has really driven home the point. My mother-in-law battled cobwebs and climbed behind blinds to clean windows and my mum spent a day up to her armpits in my grotty oven and stayed upbeat about the whole thing with us despite her misgivings about us heading off in the wilds of Asia. Our friends, the family we have chosen for ourselves, brought their ruthless packing skills, laundering and administration services, hospitality, and just-at-the-right-time laughs to bear on the chaos. But the image that really illustrates the familial experience for me comes courtesy of my aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins – my “blood” family, as they jovially like to define themselves.
Grandma has made it a tradition to farewell all members of the family by waving a red scarf in public places – airports, train stations, bus stops. This has been met with various levels of embarrassment from all of us at some point or another and so is indelibly woven into the fabric of our shared experience. As we left my parents house for the last time, both my grandmas and my parents and brother were at the gate to wave us off, Grandma with her customary red scarf. We had a chuckle and drove off, but as we rounded a corner of the driveway, there were my aunts and uncles and cousins (just out of Grandma's range of vision), frantically waving anything red immediately at hand – towels, tablecloths and most notably the lid of the Weber kettle BBQ.
There’s nothing like knowing where you’ve come from and where you’ll end up.
I’ve always known they were great, but their collective reaction to us going away has really driven home the point. My mother-in-law battled cobwebs and climbed behind blinds to clean windows and my mum spent a day up to her armpits in my grotty oven and stayed upbeat about the whole thing with us despite her misgivings about us heading off in the wilds of Asia. Our friends, the family we have chosen for ourselves, brought their ruthless packing skills, laundering and administration services, hospitality, and just-at-the-right-time laughs to bear on the chaos. But the image that really illustrates the familial experience for me comes courtesy of my aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins – my “blood” family, as they jovially like to define themselves.
Grandma has made it a tradition to farewell all members of the family by waving a red scarf in public places – airports, train stations, bus stops. This has been met with various levels of embarrassment from all of us at some point or another and so is indelibly woven into the fabric of our shared experience. As we left my parents house for the last time, both my grandmas and my parents and brother were at the gate to wave us off, Grandma with her customary red scarf. We had a chuckle and drove off, but as we rounded a corner of the driveway, there were my aunts and uncles and cousins (just out of Grandma's range of vision), frantically waving anything red immediately at hand – towels, tablecloths and most notably the lid of the Weber kettle BBQ.
There’s nothing like knowing where you’ve come from and where you’ll end up.
No comments:
Post a Comment