Family Reunion 2008

The “Campbell Cuzzins” gathered at Laura’s lake house on Saturday for our annual family reunion. I can’t figure out which year this is for our group to get together. I think this is the 10th or 11th year, but I’m really not sure. The years are beginning to run together in my memory.

Cousin Sam and I looked at some of the old reunion photos, and recognized the shirt that he wore at the first reunion we had, but we can’t remember the year. I was wearing a t-shirt that year that I bought in San Francisco, which was in the fall of 1997, so chances are I wore it to our first cousins’ get-together in June in ’98. Whatever. Just proves that we’ve been doing this for quite awhile!

The focus on my thoughts this morning is the feeling I have toward my family. When I see my cousins, my nephews and nieces, and my brothers and sister each year, I am reminded of who I am, where I came from, and the family I am a part of. I realize how fortunate I am and how much I value my place in this group. It also makes me realize that I am not alone, but that I have others who are linked to me through the genealogy of the Campbell gene pool, and who share this wonderful bond of being our parents’ children and grandchildren.

Then there are the “no blood kin” folks who are part of our family. These include our in-laws, who have become Campbells through marriage. I don’t even think of them as in-laws anymore; they are us. I have wonderful cousins, sisters, a brother, and nephews and nieces, who are now mine because they married into our family. There was even a “kissin’ cousin” who came to the reunion this year – Art isn’t biologically related to us, but he’s part of the family through his relation to one of our in-laws, and I’ve known him most of my life. There are also no-blood kin who come into the family through other avenues, and they are just as much family as any of us. I love them all!

As I said earlier, WHATEVER! We are family. We make a trek to Lake Lanier every June to see each other, catch up on family news, remember our parents through sharing familiar stories, pass around photos of the past year, and talk about getting older. I am the youngest Campbell cousin at age 60, but I am by no means the youngest Campbell. I marvel at how fast the kids change from year to year as they grow up, and those who aren’t at the reunion are remembered as their photographs move around the room. We hug and kiss, sit next to each other and eat our favorite family foods, talk about our kids who aren’t here this year, and soak up the Campbell love.

I find myself without the words I'm looking for to express my feelings. I think Elie's hug on her dad, Steve says it all. So I’ll stop writing.

(Me, Molly, Grady, Bob- Henry and Jennie's Kids)