I remember many years ago when my wife and I were very certain we did not want children.
As a young married couple—she was 18 and I was 20—nobody could tell us that it would be a good idea to have a family. No sir, we had our minds all made up.
Then an interesting thing happened. About seven or eight years after getting married my wife encountered the Lord. It changed her life, eventually changed mine as well, and very quickly we were talking about how much we both wanted children.
Fast forward about 40 years later and I couldn’t imagine life without a big family. We initially had three girls in a row, then after about an eight-year break, this little boy decided he would join the rest of us. OK, so he didn’t really decide it, but you get my point.
Four children have now turned into seven grandchildren, and as we are getting up into our senior years now, we constantly thank God for blessing us with this family. No doubt, most of you feel the same way when thinking about the family you have gotten old with.
Two of my daughters and six of the grandchildren live within five minutes of us in Slidell, and that has been wonderful in giving us the chance to build a close relationship with the grandkids. Then, one daughter lives in Texas and our son lives in Oklahoma, so it had been pretty difficult to ever get all of them together here in Slidell as we kept trying to find a way over recent years.
Two weeks ago, it all came together, and we had the best time ever when Mike got here from Oklahoma and Vicky came in from Texas, joining the rest of us for a great family reunion.
We started right out of the gate with several days of fun together, spending an evening at the Olde Towne Oktoberfest, then having a family breakfast on Sunday, followed by Mike’s birthday party that night, and then a Monday on the Gulf Coast.
I know this will forever be one of those memorable times we had as a family, probably because it was tricky to ever get all the schedules arranged so that everyone could come in at the same time.
But being together reminded me of something my wife and I talked a lot about as we had one baby after another. It’s an amazing thing to see how absolutely different each of your children is. Starting with their personality, or their habits, different characteristics about who they are—we look at all four kids and marvel how unique God has made everyone. And it is those differences that make each one so interesting to be with.
Isn’t that amazing in general when you consider all the people you know? To see every individual on this planet look different and act differently, it’s one of those things that confirms to me in no uncertain terms there must be a creator of infinite wisdom and knowledge that we can never comprehend.
I’ve frequently mentioned the incredible way our human body’s function—with the vast majority of us having pretty much a perfect body. When you consider our bodies, down to each living cell, there must be a God who created it all, and especially when you think about the way we live so well for 60, 70, 80 years and longer. None of this could have happened through evolution, that’s for sure.
But back to my wonderful family reunion. It was so much fun to have all our kids around, and five of the seven grandkids (Mike wasn’t able to bring Henry and Abby was out of town). And it wasn’t just the special, fun things we did so much as getting a chance to be together, talking about life, and showing a lot of love.
I will have to acknowledge, however, that I am finally handing over my one-on-one basketball crown to my son. I was still beating him a fair bit up until a year or so back. Then he had to go and get in great shape, buff as ever, and now the old man can’t beat the kid anymore.
Oh well, if I had to give the title to anyone it would be my boy. We spent most of his teenage life growing up at home with he and I playing ball in the driveway most days against each other. It was such fun, and even though he is now having a good time beating the old dad, I could care less.
It’s just the fun of us doing things together and showing lots of kindness and love one to another in the family.
Wow, what a blessing.
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.