That special F word …

I’m taking a break from the travel posts today. The A-Z challenge letter for today is F and although I could write about Fethiye or Florence or some wonderful destination, I’ve got family on my mind. There’s a very simple reason why … Last Friday, on April Fools Day, one of my cousin got married. Quite typical of my family to pick a date like that for a wedding!

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon. My cousin, let’s call her E, and her groom, we’ll call him F, decided to get married in a relatively small country town about 90 minutes drive south of Sydney. My family aren’t religious, in fact myself and most of my cousins aren’t even Christened, but it was important to F that he & E marry in a church, so they settled on a quaint, white-washed, rural church. I come from a pretty large family, and the groom’s family was possibly even bigger, so it was a squeeze to fit us all in. But we managed.

F and his groomsmen stood as the bridesmaids (all cousin of mine as well) began their walk down the aisle. Whilst the gathering family & friends watch the bridesmaids – I turn to look at F. His eyes were welling with tears, the love he has for E was so obvious. I look back and see that the maid of honour is crying too. Glimpsing two rows back I spot my cousin K, also crying. And that was it. My valiant struggle not to tear up was gone. It wasn’t out of sadness but rather this overwhelming feeling of love for my beautiful family. I’m so lucky to have been born into such a group of emotional and open people. My tears were also happy tears too, as I’m so pleased that E has found a caring, honest, open man like F, who will treat her with respect and love. God knows they are hard to find. The struggle is real … 🙂

The reception was held at a golf country club. The families gathering to mingle and proclaim the wedding ceremony a success. It was a merging of cultures too – my family are Australians of the Anglo-Saxon, convict-ancestors variety. The groom’s family are from Samoa & New Zealand. There was something so beautiful about the mix of languages and dress styles, and everyone went wild when the grooms family took to the dance floor to do the Haka. But I’m getting ahead of myself! The new husband & wife arrive in style … Via a golf buggy over the fairway. The MC introduces the bridal party as they dance their way into the reception hall. Husband & wife take their bridal dance and in the true style of close knit families, we all … Every one of us … Got up to join them. What followed was the usual … Dinners, desserts, speeches and lots of wine. Both families were quick to acknowledge those no longer with us. I lost my grandmother in August, the groom had lost his grandfather too. So then we have tears of another kind. My grandmother would have loved to be there. She lived for her family, it was the most important thing to her. But I’m a firm believer that we never really lose loved ones, they live on in our hearts and memories.

So, here we are – one week later. My family has welcomed a new member in F and I’m sure in time when E & F have settled we’ll be welcoming some new little family members. Four of them, if E has her way 🙂 It’s days like that which remind me how important family is. That no matter what else is going on in your life, there is a group of people who, even if you only see them infrequently, love you more than anything. They may not say it but you can feel it. I sure did last Friday … The love in the room was so thick you could almost see it in the air. These are people that no matter how crazy they may be at times, they’re still my family and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

There’s a line in the movie This Is Where I Leave You … Where the sister says to her brothers “you’re idiots, but you’re MY idiots”. I love this line. Because I’m pretty sure that’s something we all would say, smile on face, about our family 🙂
This post is part of my contribution to the A-Z Challenge for April 2016

Click here to see a list and links to all my challenge posts!