A year ago today I was flying home from a trip. We had a little bit of stormy weather just as we were descending into Bay Co. It reminded me of my maternal grandmother, Ludie Belle Baxley Greene. Her son, my uncle, Jeffie Vernon Greene, was an Army 82nd Airborne Master Sgt. paratrooper and did 3 tours in Vietnam in the late 60s, early 70s. The family story was that she always told him as he deployed to “tell that pilot to drive carefully!” I’m not sure Mother Greene ever really understood that he actually jumped out of perfectly fine airplanes for a career! If there had ever been a problem with a pilot or a plane he was on, I’d had been pretty sure he’d have the best chance of anyone of getting back to the ground safely as long as he was sitting in a jump seat!
When I wrote about my memory of those exchanges in our extended family his daughter, a cousin several years younger than me said, “I remember this story!”
Families all have their stories…. in today’s world so many families have become divided and disjointed, lacking contact, communication and context for such memories. It makes me sad when I see what family life has become among some I know…
So many people I know need the safety and encouragement of supportive family….. Lacking connections of birth, we can find connections in the Body of Christ, sharing the DNA of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. It can be every bit as nurturing as sitting around my grandparents’ table with cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents….
It is what I hope to foster during late afternoon round table Sunday suppers at my house. If you are alone and seek sisters who will join in sharing “family” stories and doing life together, you’re welcome to be part of “family”.