Celebrating Life

I attended my father-in-law's funeral this past week and saw several aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family that I hadn't seen in ages. "This is insane," I thought. "First it was weddings, baby showers, graduations, and now we only see our families at wakes and funerals." That was to be the subject of this post.
But as the idea simmered in my head I realized that these are exactly the times that we need our families and, yes, it would be great to see them at other times, but the reality is that we all have full plates, we are geographically scattered, and life gets by us faster than we might like.
So here is my new perspective: weddings, baby showers, graduations, wakes, funerals....these are our life celebrations. Yes, even wakes and funerals. At my father-in-law's funeral, we shared stories of the man we would always remember and the memories he left behind. When better to gather our families close and celebrate life?