The Bridge Over Divide

 

Christmas season started at the beginning of December when I was a child. Christmas tree decorating happened on or around December 18^th, my brother’s birthday. My brothers and sisters would gather round and decorate the tree with excitement, after Dad put the lights on of course. As we grew older there were fewer kids doing the decorating because they moved on to start their own lives. Yes, they would come home for the holidays, but Christmas tree decorating wasn’t part of the schedule. When we were younger, we would come and go from our house never thinking that one day we wouldn’t come home to family hanging around the same way, let alone not talk with each other for years at a time.

Before I continue with my “Thinking Out Loud”, let’s choose a music list:

NewSong, The Christmas Shoes, 2001, Reunion
Gary Moore, Ballads and Blues 1982-1994, 1994, Emi Europe Generic
- because I had Squirrel issues and took longer, adding one more album to my selection of tunes:
Ozric Tentacles, The Floor’s Too Far Away, 2006, Magna Carta

I am reflecting on when I was a child and also as I watched my own children grow up and start their own beginnings. It is a circle and we try to make changes from our own experiences when we have our own families. And yes, everybody does it. We want to keep them close, but life has a way of changing plans. Becoming an adult is about finding the path to discover new and exciting things in the world. We can now see the bridge being built. The bridge to the great divide.

Who knows?

Point is, they need to continue to appreciate each other. They spent the most innocent and learning times with each other, called growing up. They would play, cuddle, stay up late at night talking, not knowing we could hear everything, and yes even fight and get mad at each other. Though, when they are young, the mad goes away at the spin of a top.
It is a glorious day when the whole family can still get together once or twice a year. Whether it is for the Christmas season, a summer reunion, or everyone gathering around as we welcome a new addition to the family. That is my direct family.
My brothers and sisters have been living their own lives for more years than I can remember. Communication is rare, if at all. We have become strangers by action, but I know deep inside there is still a love for the siblings between each of them. It is a gift God gave to everyone, even though many can’t see the wrapping paper to tear open. God doesn’t give us gifts in pretty packages all the time. We need to look closer, from the heart.
Since texting on a cell phone became popular, we all became lazy and impersonal, it is easier to converse with people you really don’t know and haven’t for years through a quick text. I was texting one sibling for close to a year never to get a response before I found out it was a landline. Why didn’t I call when I wasn’t getting any returns? That’s just the way our family is and has always been. I guess we were raised with the mindset that it’s nice to have family gather, but if we didn’t, that was fine too. We all had our own lives.

We had a big reunion for my father’s 88^th birthday, a total surprise for him as we had not all been together in 34 years. Yes, all seven kids and some grandkids gathered for the first time since I was a young teenager. We all visited with each other on one-offs but never as a family. And it has been another 13 years since I have seen most of them. I saw a brother and my sisters when dad passed, and then it was months apart as we didn’t have a formal service, but I am sure that will be the last time for any get togethers. Was it strained? Yes. It was a house full of strangers catching up on lives nobody was included in over the years.
Our family has different world views which doesn’t help. There was a time when people could have opposing opinions and still be a family, but that has long since passed. I see the same tension all around, families not speaking to each other because of stupid expectations we should all believe the same way. What a shame.

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have the media blasting the negativity we hear day in and day out and have everyone gather round a great bonfire in a backyard somewhere loving life, forgetting all the crap and seeing the gift God gave us in our families?

I don’t think it is ever too late to bring a family back together again, although it would be much better if it was more than once in a lifetime. Individuals need to work on themselves and not expect others to change because they do not see eye to eye. People do change, most certainly for the better as they get older and when others focus on what has passed then the light fades from the positive changes

Its time to shorten this bridge of divide. Better yet, don’t ever let it get built.
I know this happens in many families, and I am happy to see that many families are still close. Where the siblings still get together for simple times like playing cards on a Saturday night, or two sisters calling each other to talk about recipes, brothers that play the online games together. And when the parents do roll into town, all the kids gather, with their kids of course, have a great time and laugh. It is a gift, a gift from God.

The year of 2025 is approaching fast, it is a good time to make a promise to yourself that you won’t let the good opportunities pass by. The opportunities to invite your siblings or your mom and dad over for a card game, hell any family member for that matter. If at a distance try a phone call, not a text. Just reach out and say “hi” periodically. Trust me, what seems like a couple months going by turns out to be decades, and then you will have lost memories that could have been made. Are all visits going to be perfect? No, but that’s what family is all about. We have good times, we have not so good times, but unless you get together, you will have NO TIMES.
The bridge of divide is a tough one to cross once it gets built, stop the construction now!

Thinking Out Loud, friends.