To my
surprise I read in the Calendar’s Celebration Dates that on the 15th.
of this month we celebrate Family’s Day. What a good thing as I love my
family. Not only my family, my husband and I, our three daughters, two son in
laws and our granddaughter Clara, that was born on the 8th of May in Fortaleza,
but also my big family with eleven brothers and sisters, 8 brother and sister
in laws, 38 nephews with their husbands and boy friends, as well as 18 great
nephews. Once a year, on the 1st. of May, on my parent’s wedding anniversary,
all my family gets together to talk and play and, in between, to eat and drink.
This custom started 12 years ago to everybody’s merriment and in a special
way my parent’s. We felt the importance of this meeting when our parents
were no longer with us, as it is a form of strengthening our family ties. In
fact, this year for the first time, the gathering did not have the presence
of my parents as my father died in July of last year with 91 years of age.
My parent’s
house has a large garden and what a surprise we had when we arrived and found
a circus tent! The shadow of the tress was always sufficient but the people
who organized this party foresaw the possibility of rain. It’s interesting
to note that during all these years it never rained on our Family’s Day
and it didn’t this year also! The family group that organizes the event,
which is changed every year, decided to sharpen the participant’s senses.
After our breakfast coffee we were divided into subgroups to participate in
guessing games which included touching, listening, tasting, smelling and with
magnifying glasses, our site. It was a wonderful experience. For the afternoon
each subgroup had to invent a jest or game. It was in this way that ages from
3 to 68 played in a catching chain, hide and seek, etc. We also had circular
dances. Before dusk we danced a polonaise that ended by embracing our grandparent’s
(Opa and Oma’s) home in a big hug. Everybody spontaneously touched the
walls, which inside had given us so many precious moments: this open house that
welcomed so many known and unknown people, the pleasant times drinking coffee,
Opa preparing his famous “caipirinhas” (a local sugar cane fire
water, lemon, sugar and ice drink), Oma’s full and sonorous laugh, the
suffered decline of them both and the last farewell, everything happened there
and was lived intensely.
They say
that the family institution has cracked a long time ago. Amongst us it is on
the up rise. Not without conflicts and suffering. To obtain understanding amongst
bothers is not always easy. However there was always an effort to overcome this.
It is enough to say that after the Family’s Day we annually have the Sister’s
Day to put all the gossip up to date. There are four of us and we preferably
chose a place outdoors and have a picnic. And how do the mother’s in law
get along? Let me tell you about my sister in law. Her two sons in law invite
her out to dinner on Mother in Law’s Day and the three have a lot of fun.
She and my brother invented the Grandson’s Day, in which they and the
grandparents go out with both her daughter and son’s two boys. The party
gets bigger at the end of the day when the four grandchildren take a bath in
the grandparent’s big bathtub and then “sleep” together. The
older ones are almost teenagers and wasn’t it a surprise that one of them
on his birthday asked as a present a Grandchildren’s Day!
“Congratulations
for family ties!” said a waiter the day after when I thanked him for the
help he gave us on Family’s Day. We have reached a conclusion together
that having a family united is a great source of happiness. It is something
precious that certainly contributes towards our health in every sense.
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