Happy Father’s Day to All
One way we honor our ancestors is to organize family reunions, and on my father’s side, family reunions either annually or biannually have become enduring traditions. My paternal grandfather’s clan, the Citzlers, recently celebrated our 97th annual reunion, dating back to 1925. (We missed meeting in only two of the intervening years.) In my paternal grandmother’s branch of the family, the first Bauer Family reunion of record happened in the 1930s. Both reunions continue to occur, with folks coming from miles and miles to join in the day’s activities.
What is it about some families that keep these things going, while in others, they do not? Why are there now NO continuing reunions on my mother’s side of the family? (The last gatherings I recall were in the 1970s or 1980s on both maternal and paternal branches.) For one thing, the two sides of my family had very different approaches to reunions, and the families had a different set of values and attributes. That’s probably baked into our genes, as well as being part of the family’s history. Some families forgive one another easily (or at least ignore differences when it comes time to gather for the reunion). Other families find it easier to get along from longer distances, I think.
I remember telling more than one family member that it was OK to keep one’s distance from another family member, if being together led only to arguments and bad feelings, because after all, I told them, “Even Jacob and Esau, after they reconciled, agreed to live totally apart.” (See Genesis 32-36.) While the Biblical brothers’ differences were not explicitly identified as the reason to live apart, Gen. 36: 6-7 implies that they could best avoid arguments over the grazing and water rights for their vast herds by making sure that they lived in totally separate areas.
Something one of my psychological counselors tried to teach me was that the greatest harm of repeating or reciting stories of earlier insults or slights I suffered was that I kept myself from “getting over it,” from forgiving and moving on. While I need not necessarily forget, I could (and needed to) let the memory recede and thus place less stress on my psyche. He (my counselor) extracted a promise that I would stop myself from re-telling a painful story in which I was once wronged in a trivial way by a family member, and if I succeeded in suppressing its repetition, he was sure I would eventually realize I had a better outlook on my relationship with that person. He was, of course, completely correct.
Later, we worked on how much more important still it was for me to take responsibility for my own happiness, and NOT to let others have such emotional power over me as to make ME responsible for THEIR happiness. No matter how powerful we are, we can never be certain we can make someone else totally and forever happy, and we should not let other people burden us with believing it is OUR fault when WE FAIL to make them happy, as we inevitably will.
When someone criticizes us, as adults, constantly for not measuring up to their expectations, we feel belittled, we feel inadequate, we feel we will never measure up and succeed at anything. But when we set goals for ourselves, rather than let others set goals for us, we have a chance to feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
That was an expensive lesson for me (lots of therapy sessions!), and I think that there are some families where more of the members instinctively know that lesson from the get-go. Is that lesson [that we are each responsible for our own happiness] part of the reason for more success and longevity of family reunions in some clans than in others? Maybe it’s one of the many reasons, but I think it leads to reunions being happier occasions if we recall happy memories we share, instead of reciting old, but trivial “wrongs” we inflicted on each other years or decades ago.
NOTE CAREFULLY, READERS: I am not talking about unspeakable, if not criminal, harms that families can inflict on each other! I would never claim people harmed in such ways should attend family reunions, much less go and be expected to enjoy it. In any case there’s great need for us to be kind to one another: love one another, as God has loved us, and care for one another and the creation!
Happy Father’s Day, dear readers, whether your family has reunions or not, and God bless us all: fathers, mothers, and children of all ages!