This past week has been an eventful one regarding family and has prompted me to reflect on the nature of family. I spent the past ten days visiting my daughter Allia in her New Hampshire home. My son Alex accompanied me, and we spent our time renewing the bonds of family and enjoying the beauty of New Hampshire and Maine. During our visit, my wonderful niece Zara gave birth to her son Jack in Wyoming. Another precious generation and another grandchild for my brother Razi.
The visit coincidently fell on the week of father’s day, a holiday here in the United States. Father’s Day is a holiday honoring fatherhood and paternal bonds and the influence of fathers in society. The day is held on various dates worldwide, and different regions maintain their own traditions of honoring fatherhood. However, at its core, the day is created to honor fathers.
I think I am missing something because I see it as not a day to be honored, but rather a day that reminds me of the honor I have experienced with my wife Christy, raising two amazing children and watching them grow into amazing adults. When we are together, it is easy and relaxed. It renews my soul. We spent time at Allia’s wonderful home in the woods of New Hampshire. Taking her dog Gatsby for walks while listening to wild turkeys and woodpeckers echo through the forest was rejuvenating.
Allia took us to her favorite spots in the White Mountains where we picked up some succulent jams at an unmanned roadside stand based on the honor system. She took us to Cape Elizabeth lighthouse on the coast of Maine on a breathtakingly spectacular warm summer day. I was spellbound as I watched the waves crash on the rocky shore. We sat on a picnic bench and savored a local lobster roll as seagulls called in the background.
Next, we had a picnic on a local lake in Manchester, New Hampshire. Sailboats and turtles framed a wonderful afternoon.
Several days later we dined at a small out-of-the-way restaurant called simply Earth at Hidden Pond in Kennebunkport Maine. We savored seared tuna, duck, ribs, and mushroom risotto. The location was deep in the forest in a magical setting.
On my last full evening there, Andrew and his wife Sophia (Andrew is Alex and Allia’s cousin, the son of my brother Sami) joined us for dinner. Andrew and Sophia met as students at Yale and are now in graduate studies at Harvard in astrophysics. So, again, we ate and spoke of science and family. We played our favorite card game, basra, and laughed into the evening. I can still hear them laughing and teasing each other as they continued playing games into the night while I listened from an adjacent room.
Such memories are to be cherished and carefully guarded. Family is everything. No matter what adversities we face in life, family is always there and a ready cure for what ails you. They are the embodiment and expression of pure love. In all a wonderful addition to our family’s story.
