Reunion

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time October 13, 2024

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Reunion

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days. Let your work be seen by your servants and your glory by their children.

When you add up all the people in our family gathered in one place for one weekend, you’re kind of overwhelmed. We didn’t call this a reunion, but that’s sure what it is.

There are the four from Austin and the four from Springfield. That’s 8. There are the three of us from Champaign, and the one from Evansville. That 12. There are the four from Mt. Vernon and two significant others. That’s 18. Another significant other (from Champaign) couldn’t come, or there would have been 19. Plus one in the oven.

Almost twenty men and women gathered together to celebrate each other’s existence. No one else will do that for us, but we love doing it for ourselves. This reunion-thing has staying power.

My Sandel family got together at least a couple of times at Aunt Vera and Uncle Don’s home in Peoria. Their back yard and living room were packed with kids and aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters.

Mom’s Conrady family carried on the tradition for decades, meeting each year under a giant banner at the end of July in Springfield, Illinois’ Lincoln Park, for fried chicken, ham, all kinds of salads, cold and hot vegetables, watermelon and ice cream. Oh, and don’t forget the pie. There was a swimming pool just a few steps away, but we couldn’t get out of our lawn chairs to walk even that far. Dad put on his socializing clothes and a straw hat.

The Conradys elected a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer each year. The current secretary read the minutes from last year’s reunion. The treasurer took up, of course, a collection. The president went to get the ice cream and scooped it into cones and cups. And the vice president readied herself for next year.

Abraham Lincoln’s tomb was just over the hilltop and through the woods, and we hiked over there every year. Ducks floated on the pond and we had plenty of food for them from our potluck platters. There were lots of kids. I don’t remember any fights. We played catch and tag and explored the very large park, as far as we were allowed to go. And then some.

In Evansville we travel a few miles to the Audubon State Park across the Ohio River in Henderson, Kentucky. Until recently we took family pictures under a giant tree which must have been there well over a hundred years. It got sick, and the arborist had to cut it down. We found that brazen act betraying our family difficult to forgive. Sometimes we stand as a family in the road, blocking traffic. But not for long.

Restaurants are too loud and don’t have tables for so many of us. We won’t be having a potluck, but there are just enough of us for several pizzas at Michael’s house. Or the hotel lobby, or some picnic tables in one of those beautiful Ohio River parks. We’ll find a way. It will be a fine day for our family, and we will be happy.

Teach us to number our days aright, O Lord, that we may gain wisdom of heart.

(Wisdom 7, Psalm 90, Hebrews 4, Matthew 5, Mark 10)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

#