June 21, 2010 @ 7:18 am | Filed under: Family,Pure Sunshine
“You can’t teach genetics. But you can overcome genetics. I know, because that’s what I did.” ~ Kevin Rogers, 2010
Whoever first coined the old adage: “Family. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them” must surely have known what it means to be smack-dab in the middle of a group of folks that are capable of making you feel virtually every emotion known to man, times 10.
It means that maybe while we shouldn’t live always within the exact same four walls as them, we should most definitely surround ourselves as often as possible with these people who have our back through thick and thin. We laugh, cry, remember, laugh some more, accuse, apologize, laugh even more, tease, tease, tease, and – LAUGH.
My brother is full of dead-panned one-liners that make me laugh out loud. His sentences are almost always deeply philosophical. So much so that if you didn’t know him you’d be leaning back in your chair trying desperately to make sense of this long string of words that just slipped from his lips.
And Jordan wonders why I so often slip and call him “Kevin…” It’s because his words, his antics, his mannerisms transport me back a few years and it’s conversation and time around my brother all over again. I see glimpses of my childhood in my son and it fills me with wonder at this miracle of family.
It is the sporadic and unexpected spurts of laughter when the conversation turns to Johnny James. We share the awe we feel in the presence of a man so brilliant that he can walk to the podium, speak for 45 minutes on the dot without the use of a watch, can quote the entire Bible, and – in the midst of it all – leave us with an impromptu English lesson as only a truly great grammarian can.
“Grammaria?” My brother pipes up in the middle of my dad’s JJ description. “Is that near Ethiopia? Do you need your passport to go there?”
Laughter.
It’s that deep, gut-wrenching hiccup that grabs you around your middle and makes the faces around you light up, tears to puddle in your own eyes, and holds your heart in its tight, joyous, amazing grasp while you savor it all, drinking it in with a great. big. sense of wonder.
It’s the bubble of uncontrolled mirth that grabs you again after you’re in bed at night. It’s the glee your heart feels as your mind replays the day and the words of your two-year-old niece – like her daddy in so many, many ways – that have you and your husband wiping your eyes in the dark from the sheer deliciousness of shared laughter.
My mom gifted each of the men with Polo Black for Father’s Day. Now – in moderate applications – I’m a fan of Polo Black. But when all three of men open their brand new bottles and apply a squirt or two, joking all the while that we now have a “family fragrance,” it can become a bit, well…fragrant.
So when two-year-old Andi walks into the room, sidles up to her grandfather, and honestly declares, “You stink!” it’s a moment that sticks with you. It’s one of those delightful little pockets of time that we tuck away for days when we’ll all need a moment of levity. A moment to pause, remember, and know.
Know that through it all we are family.
Family.
They are the ones who share our past, our middle, and – if we’re very fortunate – our futures. They’re in it for the long haul – no questions asked. There is no other place on the planet that offers that kind of security. No wonder family is God’s great gift to His children. It is a wonderful thing.
It is, after all, where you learn about gentetics, grammarians, and other stinky stuff!
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