Pause and Smile for Family

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu

Have you ever noticed how sometimes everything wants to happen on the same day? That’s the way it was in our family last weekend. My grandson was graduating from high school and my granddaughter was having an engagement party. On the same day! What’s a grandmother to do? Luckily, the graduation was in the morning and the party in the afternoon. The only problem was they were 160 miles apart. Actually, it didn’t turn out to be a huge problem. Very doable – just meant a few hours on the road, but well worth it to be able to celebrate with both of these grandkids.

And we had time to pause and smile. These days, with nearly everybody having a camera in their pocket, we’re always ready to grab just one more picture to remember the day or event. Or maybe a dozen more pictures to remember the day. That can make for a few groans from the picture weary, but usually the groans can be changed into smiles to become treasured pictures.

So last weekend at the graduation, cameras were flashing as all the families grabbed those pictures outside after the ceremony or the night before at the Senior Night celebration. Then we did some family picture taking at my granddaughter’s celebration of her engagement. Such fun to share these happy times with my sons and their families.

It’s good to pause, gather in a group and smile to make pictures to help us remember. Pictures are part of the celebration of family events. While now pictures are so easy to take, it hasn’t always been quite that easy. When I started taking pictures, I peered through the viewfinder, pressed a button and hoped that when the film was developed, the picture would turn out good.

That’s the kind of picture I took many years ago here in my aunt’s yard. I’m not sure what we might have been celebrating in this picture. Maybe just the chance to get together on a sunny summer day. Whatever the reason, I’m glad we paused and smiled for the camera so that now all these years later, I can think about the fun we always had when we got together with family and how blessed I was with each of those smiles that were often directed at my way.

More celebrations will be coming our way as an engagement will lead to a wedding and more of the grandkids will be graduating from this or that. We’ll have more Mother’s Days and Father’s Days and birthdays. All good reasons to pause and smile. While the big celebrations are great picture opportunities, so are those sweet family gatherings when the smiles are plentiful and the times are good.

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.  ~Earl Nightingale

As always, thanks for reading.

Have you had the chance to celebrate some special family time this year?