Family

Judy. Yesterday, I learned that my dear cousin Pat passed away.  She lived in South Alabama, and every day, Pat cooked lunch for anywhere from 10-15 members of her own family. On Facebook, she posted photos of her precious great-granddaughter weekly. When her sister’s husband died, Pat and her husband James insisted Martha move in with them. This is a beautiful family.

My friends Anne and Bill have a vast extended family with whom they are extremely close. I can’t even keep up with all of their relatives. They, too, are a beautiful family.

As is my own. This weekend we will take a 2-week repositioning cruise to Florida to meet our own kids and grandkids for a week of love and fun. We have celebrated Thanksgiving with Daniel’s and Sarah’s families, and loved every minute of it. Ted’s family remains close, despite our vast distances.

In so many of the countries we visit, family is everything. Children tend to stay near their parents as they grow up and have their own families, unlike those of us from the US, who move away for jobs, or for warmer climates, or, like us, for adventure. On the streets, you often see three generations walking together. Dads are out in force, sometimes in groups, progressing with strollers through crowds, and it’s common to see adult children pushing their parents in a wheelchair. Restaurant dinners are sometimes a matter of three tables pushed together so that grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, can all fit around.

It’s certainly true in Poland and in Spain, which is why to be loved by Alex’s family in Spain and Robert’s in Poland is such a precious gift. These are people we’ve known for years, and they are more than special to us.

What a pleasant surprise, then, to be embraced here by José-Maria and Eva’s family!

We met José-Maria about four years ago when he was in the US staying with some mutual friends. It was Christmas, and our friends, Melissa and Lou, had made arrangements to fly to be with their son in California, so José-Maria would be alone. We invited him to celebrate Christmas with us, and we spent a few days together.

Not long afterwards, he returned to the Canary Islands, and began in earnest to develop his magazine, Que Paso Las Palmas, which morphed into a successful online fashion magazine that you can check out at www.qpmag.com.

José-Maria met us for dinner a couple of times here in Las Palmas, and two weeks ago invited us to his son Ian’s fourteenth birthday party. For some strange reason, we expected maybe a couple of relatives, just a small gathering. But when we walked into the house, we entered a home packed with family and love.

 

Eva, Ian, and Jose-Maria

Eva, Lucy and Pepe (Tio Pepe—if you like sherry, you get his joke), Maria-José and José, Elora and her boyfriend Dimas—these folks took us right in and made sure we had a real Canarian experience. A few days later, they met us, along with José-Maria, Eva, and Ian, at Parque Santa Ana for the Christmas tree lighting and concert. Later, we gathered on the north of the island in Agaete, where they introduced us to a favorite “true Canarian” bar called El Perola, took us to Puerto de las Nieves to see the beautiful beach, and then to the southern side to eat at Vaqueria, a traditional restaurant. They introduced us to papas con mojo, ropa vieja, gofio, Canarian cheese, and pork and cheese sandwiches, as well as a queso con pimento dip Eva makes, to which I could become addicted.

They taught us Canarian phrases like “Chacho, chacho, chacho!” for when things are really good or really bad. They accepted our attempts to speak Spanish and told us about their lives.

At the Christmas Concert

And a proud moment for us came when Tio Pepe told us he considers us part of the family.

As Christmas approaches, and we head back to our own family I am reminded of how precious a gift we have in each other. It doesn’t get much better than that.