As I climbed the rickety stairs to the quaint old banquet room I was full of anticipation. A reunion of family members from my paternal grandmother’s family was about to begin. A plethora of strange faces confirmed the distance in time and genetics that had invaded over the years. The accuracy of my destination was soon confirmed by a few familiar faces, even some seen just the past week. As conversations engaged about family connections from one person to another, I caught a strangely familiar face out of the corner of my eye as the woman glanced my way. She was chatting with another familiar cousin who had engineered the reunion unfolding. I made my way over to see who she was and discovered a distant cousin I had not seen in fifty years. Her father had given me my first pony and my first bicycle. I still possess the latter, tucked away in the storage shed adjacent to the farm house. The pony is long gone, but the fond memories of my uncle flooded the present as we talked about my family and hers. She is my father’s first cousin and although older than I, seemed very much a part of my childhood generation. She remembered me as the pesky little kid always hanging around. As I sat beside another cousin visiting from Japan and across the table from my renewed acquaintance, I marveled at the wonder of new connections with old memories brought into today’s domain. I looked at their faces and other familiar ones around and was flooded with a plethora of emotions. Pleasant memories surfaced as I realized that even though I may never see these precious people again (by virtue of sheer distance and time), I was filled with gratefulness for the moment at hand. On the leisurely drive home, a storehouse of those memories that were shelved behind busy schedules and seemingly urgent agendas began to be unpacked. On that day I discovered another thread in the tapestry that I am experiencing as life and am so thankful to the Master Weaver.
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