Family Reunion

A Family Reunion

For the past twenty years our family who consist of my maternal relatives, have gathered in different locations to be with each other for our annual family reunion. My mother was the eldest of thirteen children, so therefore we have an extremely large family who all totally adore each other.

The Reunion was the organized effort by one of our older first cousins who wanted to continue the family tradition of getting together with each other just for fun rather than only at a wedding or a funeral.

The Family Event Planning Committee usually will schedule this large two day event around the Labor Day weekend, when there is a no work or school scheduled. On Friday night is the Family Fish Fry. This is held at the venue selected by the family currently hosting the event and Saturday is the Annual Family Barbeque and other festivities.

But due to the extreme Texas heat, the event often gets re-scheduled to a cooler time of the year to accommodate my mother's elderly siblings, because all activities take place outside, we usually have a large tent put up for family members who are heat sensitive. There are several activities for the young people who insist on having plenty of excitement and entertainment. This always leads to a potential accident or injury.

My mother's family is a faith based family and we all love to sing, in fact some family members have sang with world renowned gospel recording artists, so when we're all together there is a lot of singing and we always have the young people perform a talent show, where every sibling assigns someone from their immediate family to represent them with a performance, it can be playing an instrument, performing a dance, reading a poem, or whatever they want to do, but it has to be respectfully done with our family members in mind. Needless to say, this is so much fun, and each year this event usually turns into a talent competition and I love to see how the family has inherited such naturally raw talent that was passed along all the way through our children.

Our Annual Reunion has been held at several different locations. The most somber reunion I can recall, other than the first reunion held after the passing of our mother, was a few years ago when we held the reunion at a family member's home, in their backyard, which was a smaller and more intimate reunion because this was our first time together after the death of our youngest uncle, who lived and had passed away in San Francisco, CA, although at this reunion we had his urn present so that we as a family could have a memorial service and release his remains at our family's property.

Consequently, each year during the reunion we have "A Time of Reflection" this occasion is similar to a family roll call of living and deceased family members followed by a moment of silence to celebrate the family members who have passed away, and is concluded by a joyful song by our oldest aunt "Hold on You Can Make It." And we all join in and sing together. It's beautiful.

On one occasion the reunion was held at the ranch of a friend of the family. The day started out hot and dreary, it was so many people there that it was hard for the air to circulate in the area we were in. Everyone was playing basketball,