Saturday, March 31, 2012

Family of Origin


Some days, you just need to feel connected to your source. Isn't my mother beautiful? Doesn't my brother look happy? And look how my father's posture reveals his intent to guard and protect. It was the very core of who he was. No wonder he chose the law.

As for me, that curiosity in my face is a large part of who I am. My family will tell you I want to know the details of everything, especially people's hearts. When we were growing up my brother would halt my incessant questions with an irritable, "Stop interrogating me." I wanted to know. My mother and father would answer all my questions, however, patiently and honestly and thoroughly. Their philosophy was if I was old enough to be curious about a thing, I was old enough to have the truth. They felt if I opened a book to read it, then I was old enough to take it in. There was no nervous oversight of the information coming to me, no sense ever that a category of information was "beyond" me. I appreciate them for that. They helped shape a future journalist.

I look at my own children now, wading deeper into the stream of their lives, ready for their own futures to claim them. I hope we gave them what they needed. I hope we did okay.


13 comments:

  1. Heavens yes. She is lovely! Lovely, lovely, lovely--just like her daughter and granddaughter!

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  2. You are all beautiful. x0 N2

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  3. Your mother radiates so much love and so much joy.

    What a gorgeous, young family. And how incredibly beautiful it is to see both you and your vibrant daughter in your momma's smile.

    Missing you! I think about you very often and send lots of love.

    Big hugs.
    Debra

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  4. What a beautiful picture of all of you. Your mother is beautiful.

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  5. You're right. And I bet she used to wear flowers in her hair. Is that you on her lap? Great family photo!

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  6. Beautiful, as is every single member of your family I've seen; love shines from all of you. Feel and be safe today. xo

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  7. The eyes in your family are just so extraordinary. I imagine that love in your heart is safe forever.

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  8. There you go again, posting on the weekend when I'm not paying attention.
    I love this photo! What a classic!
    m.

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  9. Oh, Angella! This feels like the opening paragraphs of a beautiful memoir. I'm stamping my foot now, and I want you to finish...compete with more of these amazing photos!

    And I knew that the baby was you right away! Those amazing eyes!

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  10. What a beautiful photograph — and amazing that it managed to capture so much in the pre-digital days, which says so much more than today, when we have the ability to click again and again and again in order to get just what we want.

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  11. "I hope we did okay."

    You absolutely must have.

    If it could all be summed up so easily, I would say that I have thinkers for parents, and my husband has what I might call describers. But what we wouldn't do to give them all just the smallest bit of your inquiry! Or what appears to be in your mother, a willingness to engage the analytical mind.

    What a different life we would have had if they'd done that when we were young. That's why I only wish it on them now.

    As for your "little ones", they are surely prepared!

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