"To Everything There is a Season"

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." Ecclesiastes 3

As my Mother lay ill these past weeks, I have had to face the possibility of losing her. I can barely acknowledge the thought. But we are mortal. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Our lives are in God's hands and we are here on earth at His will.

My Mother and I have fought, we have disagreed, but we always come full circle back to the love that is shared between a mother and a child. Bound together with ties that cannot ever be shattered.

And as my Mother lay sick, the cycle of life continued in my family. My nephew welcomed twins and my niece is about to celebrate her marriage this weekend. Life, birth, death and all those wonderful and awful experiences in between bind us together, make our histories one, a shared consciousness, a collective memory. We may fight with our families, we may wander far away, but always, they are with us.

We are not perfect, no we are not, we follow different paths and sometimes grow apart but we never really leave our families.

And, as always, the cycle continues as we create new families in ceremonies steeped in tradition, fused with love and hope for the future.

I'd like to share with you today one of the most joyous days of my life, the marriage of my son to my beloved daughter in law. Bittersweet because my husband missed this momentous day in our son's life but he was there nonetheless carried in our hearts by all our memories. Family, forever, infinite thanks to the power of love.