Today is your anniversary. 1969 – 2011. That makes it your 42nd anniversary. Heh, so maybe the answer always is 42…
I realise now that you’re sharing your anniversary with each other, which is the way it should be. Tonight, I’ll make dinner and dance with your first grandchild, and think of you. Maybe I’ll raise a glass to the sky for you.
When I was eight, I spouted my own favourite piece of wisdom. I said “mom, an anniversary is a family birthday”. 42 years of a family. If I know anything at all, I know that you were all about the family. From the moment you committed to each other, that was it. Your commitment to each other, to creating and preserving a family through all of life’s tribulations was always at the forefront of your minds, and actions.
And for you, as you taught us, family is more than just a bloodline. Family extends to all who touch your heart, to your fellow man and woman, to friends, and to those you hold so dear.
Our family is larger now. Larger than it’s ever been. Where once there were three kids -two girls and one boy – forming the focus of it, we now have three, giggling, exuberant, clever little girls. Oh how they laugh and talk (they all inherited the gift of the gab!) and play. They are the future of our family, and how proud you must be.
Every day, I marvel over something you said to me once Dad. We were having one of our gallons-of-tea-swirls-of-cigarette-smoke pontification talks, and you said that you believed that we all carry on once we die but, that you didn’t prescribe to a very popular theorem. You believed entirely that we carry on through our children, and our grandchildren.
I believe you now. I see you in your grandchildren. I see you so brightly in my brother. I see more and more of Mom in myself and my sister. I see you and mom’s combined tenacity and ability to love on a grand, all-encompassing scale, in each of your granddaughters. I realise now that we’ve probably created super versions of you two, and of ourselves. That strong commitment to values, and beliefs…I see that in them already.
So, you were right. We do carry on through our children, our grandchildren. You left us a legacy of love that we can all only hope to live up to, and work so hard to.
And, about that love. Thank you. Thank you for letting me live through your love-that-went-beyond. Thank you for the love that you built our family on. Thank you for that firm, unwavering, unconditional foundation. Thank you for instilling in me the dream that that kind of enduring love would one day be mine. Thank you for never giving up on it. That love stays with me every single day. I believe that love you set as an example has found me, and I’m living it. Your example is one that I will set for my own daughter, I promise.
Happy 42nd Family Birthday. We miss you. X