An old lace collar tatted in an intricate design surrounds a sepia tone photograph of a young couple from another era. The collage of fabric and image has been placed under glass, framed and hung in a prominent place on the living room wall.
To the owner, presently the matriarch of her family, the memorabilia displayed in the natural circular pattern of an adornment for the neck visibly prompts fond memories of her own mother. But it also reminds other onlookers, less sentimentally connected to the personal history, of the continuity of family.
For beneath the aesthetic wall hanging sits a bride-to-be, soon the newest addition to this clan. The ladies of the family have gathered to shower the young woman, fashionably dressed in a bridal white suit accented by a corsage of peach colored carnations, with a warm welcome. Hugs and good wishes abound. And in keeping with the nurturing concept of good food, good fun for all family reunions, gifts to equip a new kitchen mount.
This scene has been played out time and time again in every generation of every family. Nothing except the face of this bride, is new. And yet, if she listened, truly listened, to the conversations around her, she had to feel a part of something greater than even the creation of her new home. For in that gathering clustered in a room full of antique furniture was a microcosm in the essence of living.
From the youngest cousin who had just turned 11 to the aunt who had just celebrated her eightieth birthday, the women came with open arms to greet the stranger that one of the family's younger menfolk had chosen to be his mate for life. One cousin shared the particulars about her twentieth wedding anniversary and the upcoming party her 15-year-old will attend. Another discussed her recuperation from back surgery.
All expressed concern for the hospitalized uncle, husband to one of the aunts present, regretted the news that one of the cousins couldn't come because she had been called into work at the hospital, and rejoiced that yet another cousin couldn't come because she had given birth to a baby boy that very morning. Three were late because they first attended a funeral mourning the loss of a friend's two children tragically killed in an accident.
And even though most talk was personal, world events did not go unnoticed. When asked, one of the hostesses who had lived in the Middle East for years expressed great concern for her friends and acquaintances in that crisis area. Even the bride-to-be was caught up in the turmoil of world affairs. The groom could not accompany her on the five-hour trip to meet his extended family because the young helicopter pilot, along with his entire unit had been restricted to base by the army.
One week after the wedding, he departs for Germany and her parents will leave for Panama where her father has been reassigned as a pilot instructor. Panama is her mother's home. The young bride will join her husband as soon as he has found an apartment, so she speaks of the adventures her immediate family will enjoy. But in words left unspoken, this very bright, attractive young woman acknowledges that what the rest of the world chooses to do affects her very existence.
The old tatted lace collar still hangs on the wall, a testimony to the tribulations and joys of an earlier generation. In some ways, the nature of these emotions change with the changing times. In others, they don't. The French claim that the more things stay the same, the more they change. But the converse may be equally true. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
May God bless this new home.
1990
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