Family Stories

Healthy Families are Becoming the Stuff of Fairy Tales

As you can tell from this blog, my family is really important to me.

And not only is my family important to me, but every single family is important to me. I think that the family is something I think about so much because I can see how my family has really shaped and formed who I am and what I believe.

When I was in the airport this weekend flying back to school after being with my family for Thanksgiving break, I was sitting and reading my book, and I could not help overhearing the phone conversation the young women next to me was having with what sounded like her best friend.

I tried my best to focus on what I was reading, but my attention kept going back to what she was telling her friend.

What I gathered from casually listening in, (I know, call me a creeper), is that she was flying back from seeing the man who she had just found out was her father. She told her friend that she had known this man before, and this mans father, but she had know idea that he was her dad and that his dad was her grandpa.

As she was talking on the phone she was externally processing with her friend how so many things in her life now made sense to her.

She was saying how the man who was her grandpa, (who has since passed away), would always hug her super tightly, and now she knows why.

She said that she had always felt like she did not really look like anyone in her family; but after discovering who her dad is she feels like she knows where she gets her physical characteristics.

She said that she has always had a bigger temper then the rest of her family that she did not understand, but after talking with her dad and stepmom she realized that she and her dad not only have the same way of expressing anger, but they also have many of the same mannerisms and personality traits.

She was expressing how her life makes more sense to her now.

As I was listening to her speak and have had more time to think about the conversation I overheard, I have become overwhelmed by how thankful I am for my family, and that I have always known who I belonged to and where I came from.

I have never had to wonder who I looked like or why I acted the way that I did. I have always had a solid foundation in my family to turn back to whenever I had questions about who I was or who I came from.

And I realized that sadly, the story that the woman in the airport shared is not an uncommon one. What is becoming more uncommon are stories like mine.

Stories of families who love and support each other unconditionally, even in the midst of arguments and suffering.  Families where the parents have been happily married for 27 years and where the children feel like they can talk to their parents about anything going on in there life. Families where each person is cherished and accepted for who they are and not what they do. A family who is rooted in faith.

So I think that's why I am so proud of my family and why I want to share our story.

Families like mine are becoming the stuff of fairy tales and I want the whole world to know that it does not have to be that way.

Loving families can be a reality if we start living and viewing families as they were intended from the beginning.