Reunions

Days before, kitchens bustled with moms, daughters, and granddaughters preparing favored dishes.  Baking cakes and pies, breaking beans and shelling peas to boil with seasonings of fat and salt, frying chicken, making biscuits, and the obligatory house wines of the south – gallons of sweet tea and tart lemonade.  Mounds of potato salad, coleslaw, and gelatin dishes crowded the refrigerator before suppertime on Saturday night.  Tablecloths ironed, baskets and bowls marked, and boxes for careful placement of goodies for transport, sat ready to receive their bounty on Sunday.

Meeting at the designated site, Dads, sons, and grandsons prepared for the coming festival.  Mowing the fields, laying out the horseshoe pits, and setting up bases for softball, nets for volleyball and gathering lawn furniture to shaded patios, they worked companionably toward a unified goal.  Pick-up trucks backed in loaded down with tables and additional seating for arrangement.  Dominating Friday and Saturday, trimming, sweeping, and set-up competed with laughter and the hammering of stakes to mark off 'safe zones' for the family to congregate.  

The first Sunday in June marked the reunion.  Rotating location yearly, we gathered at the home of one of the elders to spend a day together.  After church, carloads of cousins and distant relatives trekked to reacquaint with family, sharing life events in celebration with fun and agreeable conflict of opinions on raising crops or kids.  The latest political climate often competed with the weather discussions.  Babies passed around eager arms for feeding and burping while mothers organized tables groaning with dishes from time honored family recipes.  Kids raced and squealed with delight in anticipation of feasting while teens participated in chores of ‘fetch and carry’ to help where needed.  At the prescribed moment, heads bowed for blessing the bounty before us of food, faith, and family.

Sated, we settled in for an afternoon of games.  Rivalries from previous years met in friendly matches of organized chaos.  Laughter and the whack of balls in croquet competed with thumps of softballs hitting mitts and shouts of umpire calls.  By mid-afternoon, the younger children down for naps on pallets and in playpens under the watchful eyes of teenagers, the rest of us gathered around the piano.  Voices lifted in song with spiritual abandon for hours, harmonizing in melodies pure and sweet the hymns we so loved.  A late afternoon of sweets and beverages capped the day of strengthening ties with family and God.  

All hands pitched in for clean up.  Washing dishes in tubs set up near the tables and packing up leftovers fell to the matriarchs.  Bagging trash for hauling away and loading up the trucks with borrowed equipment for return to the owners completed by the 'men-folk'.  Throughout the activities, good spirited ribbing and pearls of wisdom shared in a teaching, loving manner, prepared the next generation for continuing the wonderful traditions enjoyed during the day.  Tired, happy, celebrated, and loved, we returned to our resemblance of normal for another year.

Those times of welcoming new family through birth and marriage, fondly recalling those passing away in the previous year, and solidifying ties that extended beyond immediate household members, are treasured reminders of what I can expect someday.  My eternal family grows with the blood of Christ embracing brothers and sisters from around the world.  When we have all crossed the river to meet again at a feast like none we can imagine, hosted by Jesus, we will be attending the ultimate family gathering.  With glorious celebration and joyous reunion for an eternity of peace, praise, and worship, we will all be together at last.  Will I see you there?

Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’”  And he added, “These are the true words of God.”  Revelation 19:9 (NIV)