For the last two years, my side of our family has gathered in southeastern Ohio for an extended family reunion weekend. Cousins romp together; a new baby is celebrated and cherished; laughter is frequent; somewhat zany ideas of group activities occur. (This year's agenda included horseback riding, hiking, hot tubs and s'mores, shopping, great eats, dressing up our American Girl^TM dolls, an "Everybody's Birthday Party", tie-dying and designing our own iron-on logo. Oh, and lest I forget, reading Harry Potter, Book 4!)

It was fun. Exhausting. Exhilarating. Emotionally draining. This year we celebrated, yet we also grieved, missing our Dad. A trip to the family farmland, now reverting to forest, and to see "The Cottage" (a summer home) became a place to remember, to think, to ponder. How long ago was it that we spent humid summer nights here, sharing meals around a table in the basement that smelled of earth and mold? Wasn't it just a few years? (No, more like 20...)

The once brightly whitewashed walls of "The Cottage" are graying and peeling; the roof is caved in and the floors are unsafe. Yet we remember and paint pictures for our spouses and kids of what it was like in our childhood. Here's the croquet court! Here's where the sandbox was! There's the outhouse! ("YUCK!" said our daughters "we'd NEVER use THAT!") This is where we hung the big swing! The road to the old house is over that way! Our Dad wasn't with us, and yet he was. Stories poured out and the laughter came through tears.

We took lots of things with us as we left. Bricks from an old sidewalk. Lily of the valley and ferns. Lovely old irises. An old adirondack chair. Slate from the back porch walkway. Old tiles. But we also took something much more valuable. It is that somewhat intangible thing called "roots".

Back at our cabins, memories came out in a flood as we poured over old pictures Mom brought from the family archives. Looking at days when we were younger, thinner and hipper, we laughed over a "Mod Squad" look-alike photo and reminisced about our weddings. We ripped up absolutely ugly school yearbook photos ("There are ages when children should not be photographed" said one sib.) Bemused spouses looked at group photos, wondering "which daughter is who?" and good-naturedly withstood our rambling discussions.

Back at home, the girls asked if they could see "our" old photographs. I pulled out a few albums of baby pictures and we looked over them with more laughter, more stories. I showed them the old christening gown that they wore, and that their great-grandfather wore. We looked at the little footprints on a birth register, the pictures of a tired but happy set of parents. We cooed over photos of a big sister snuggling her new little sister, of cats, a new house and the first day of school. More "roots".

I can't make my children love my childhood summer haunts. But I can offer them their own sets of memories which can surround them in the rhythm of their growing up years. I'll let them groan and tear up their school pictures, even though I think each year's face is lovelier than the last. And over and over again, I'll tell them "we love you"... "I love you"... "God loves you"...

You see, there's more to life than just memories. That's not "all that's left". If memories were all I had, it would be a depressing world indeed! Memories fade, get distorted and sometimes disappear in the canyons of time.

For eternity I have a hope, a living promise of heaven. I have encouragement in the bewildering days, peace in the hurting hours, faith over the long haul. And I pray our girls will hang onto that hope, too...