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I attended my mother’s 85th birthday on the weekend. In my family there are 4 groups: the sibs (4 boys, 2 girls), the outlaws (our partners), the cuzzies (our children), and the family (our cousins). Family gatherings have always been an occasion for far too much eating and drinking, lots of singing, good-natured arguments, wildly embellished stories and raucous laughter. Lunch started at 12.30 and finished at about 8pm – pretty standard for us.
My mother doesn’t do speeches (she prefers more subtle forms of influence), but she took the opportunity to reflect on what the gathering meant to her. For her, the most important thing was having a sense of belonging: everyone who was there had a right to be there because they belonged to the family and the family belonged to them. I’ve been reading an interesting book which talks about how love and belonging are equal parts of the same thing. That certainly struck me on Sunday when I met up with a cousin I hadn’t seen since I was a small child (he’s about 15 years older than me). I knew who he was and he knew who I was, where we both fitted into the scheme of things and how we were connected – funnily enough it’s not even the DNA as he was adopted. I caught up with another cousin who I hadn’t seen for 20 years or more. He’d kind of drifted away from the family, but Mum really wanted him to be there. For him and for us, the years melted away. There was an instant identification and familiarity based on our family ties. We all have a few places where we belong, family being the most primal and powerful. They exist regardless of whether we are physically together or not, but to be truly powerful, those places have to be protected and nurtured. Do something this week to cultivate your place of belonging. |