Gratitude for my Family

I always loved celebrations in families, my parents always wanted us to be together, even though each one of us are so very different by nature, what kept us united was my parents desire to hold on celebrations.

Mom& dad celebrated every person’s birthday at home, and almost all the festivals in the family.  In fact all Mondays were celebrations, for one reason because it was my dad’s weekly off, and everyone even in the extended family knew, my dad will be at home, so we had visitors on Mondays.  Sundays were special because it was a holiday for all of us, and my mother was particular to make special food on Sundays.

After my parents death, it has not been easy to hold celebrations, as every family had their own life style and issues to deal with, despite all that we did attempt to come together celebrated enthronement in honor of my mother, at another time, it was my mom’s birthday, then we continued calling everyone on some pretext so that we could come together.

This time, we came together on 16 October, 2013 for a very valid reason.  The reason was that one of our old family friend, a priest wanted to meet all of us together, so I took opportunity to call all my brothers and sisters for an evening dinner.

I was so happy to see all of them coming to my place to spend a couple of hours to meet Fr Peter Devaraj, who  belongs to  pallottine congregation, and was previously working at St Anthony’s church, Mudfort almost 30 years ago. I have been in touch with him occasionally, whenever he came to India.

This visit when he spoke to me, he expressed his desire to meet all of us together, so the hint was enough for me and then I made contacts, and we met as a family.  We sang hymns and prayed together, we also shared our old stories of Mudfort, where Fr Peter Devaraj used to visit our family, interact with my parents and even shared some biblical insights of the different characters from the scripture.

Each one shared their own experiences, and the jokes that they remembered. For a couple of hours we were together as a family, and my eldest  sister in law made a comment, stating: “it was like my parents visited all of us together” and almost all of them were happy and expressed their feelings of happiness and joy in coming together, and later on when I sent sms thanking them, I received prompt replies appreciating me for inviting them for a evening gathering.

We missed Neomi, Nancy, Ezekiel and my last sister in law Anuja, who could not make it due to unavoidable reasons, but were so much part of our prayers.

“You don’t choose your family, they are God’s gift to you, as you are them “Desmond Tutu"

With love  gratitude !!