I am a wife and a mother of two young adult children. I am a sister, a daughter, a niece, an aunt and a godmother. I am related to many people and we are all part of our family.
The words that come to my mind to describe what a family means are: unity, support, love, respect, understanding, forgiveness, truthfulness, faith, trust and God’s presence in our lives.
This year we are celebrating the silver jubilee of our marriage. Our marriage was built on a friendship. Being a friend meant that we had to make time for each other, to watch what the other person needs, to make an effort to understand each other and to listen to messages communicated by the other person.
At the time we met, twenty eight years ago, the two of us had other plans for life and, I suppose, God also had plans for us. We did not want to change the other person’s life, but we prayed and each of us allowed God to work within us. Over the years we experienced all the human dilemmas, sadness and joy. We met questions that we did not know how to answer and we answered questions that landed on our door step. We made our commitments. We showed each other our love by making time to be together, to forgive and to share. We built our home, not only the house of bricks and walls but the home in our hearts. We welcomed our children and we missed those that were taken away from us.
Recently in a conversation with one of our children I was told that we, as parents, were always there for them but we did not stop them from experiencing the difficult times. They learnt how to manage the challenges and to find solutions to their dilemmas and they saw God’s presence in our everyday routine. We celebrated every Sunday with morning Mass and we made Sunday a family day. We were lucky that our children came with us to Mass naturally, without protesting. We wanted to show to our children that they can fly high and they can spread their wings. They can be scared and still have the courage to try, they can trust our love and they can trust God’s love for them. We are here at home waiting for them.