Simple gifts...Six dogs and seventeen people

Seventeen chairs, four different kinds squeezed side by side around the table, held our Christmas family. Grandma, eighty five years old, was the oldest and the five great-grandsons were the youngest. Friends David and Dianne were a part of the mix along with six dogs. Serving the meal is an informal affair. Food is arranged along the bar and the stove with mamas serving their children first. We sit as we fill our plates then say grace when all are seated. The “talleyban” bowl is struck, the words of gratitude are spoken and the menorah is lit. It is mayhem with meaning.
The year has been the usual mix of grief and joy, struggles and accomplishments, worry and assurance. Uncle Harold died this year, the last of the Calhoun boys, and that loss weighed heavy on mama. New baby boy Colby came into the world after nine months of pregnancy related illness for his mother Alison. Michael’s transition into partial retirement and a knee replacement surgery are doing well after rehab for body and soul. All of us have had our usual share of challenges and triumphs but here we are, once again gathered as family in all its messy glory.
Watching four generations mill around, I can see bits and pieces of those who have gone before. Megan brought two banana nut breads created from her grandmother’s recipe, Michael’s mother Ann. Mason asks Grandma about Grandaddy’s picture, my daddy, that hangs in her hall. Adam and Michelle are giving Michael’s father’s desk a new home. We set the table with silver from mothers, grandmothers and great-aunts long dead. The living are surrounded by family unknown and unseen but present nonetheless.
I sit and listen to the Tower of Babel babble grateful for the mixed bag of family. There are no guarantees, no return policies, no quality assurance control for the family. The gene pool you get is not one selected from a USDA approved line. We all get a mixture of genetically predetermined possibilities with free choice as a leavening ingredient. The combinations are endless and fascinating. A world of hurt swims side by side with the goodies in the gene pool... predispositions to addictions, depression, physical conditions and other dark possibilities. We all get a generous helping of both and then begins the creative process as we go to work shaping who we become.
I watch my family and wonder what the future holds for them. I see through a glass darkly and am unable to know what life will be like for them. One thing I do know with certainty... the God who set all Creation in motion will be present for them all their lives. The Love that will not let me go will hold my children and grandchildren close when I am no longer here. And when I am gone from this Christmas gathering on earth, I will thank God for each year I have been given, for the murky gene pool from which I came, and for the laughter of children from one generation to another.