One of the things I have always loved about getting together with my parents is the storytelling. There are certain stories in our family (and probably yours too) that get told and retold. Favorite stories for us include the one about how my dad stuck a fork in his older sister’s butt cheek, how my Grandma casually came out to the living room where my Grandpa and my Dad were talking and said sweetly, “Danny, the kitchen is on fire…”, how my sister nailed me in the head with a wooden Fisher-Price clock on a road trip to Canada…those are just the tip of the iceberg.
Dylan, Jason, and Hannah (Jason’s girlfriend) are here for the holiday weekend and tonight after dinner we sat around the table talking about the next generation of funny stories: how I caught Dylan (at age 2) eating paint from the can I was using for the trim in his room, how Jason let himself out of the house (at age 2) so he could socialize with the teenagers who were playing basketball across the street, how Jason got his head caught in the iron railing on our stairs and Jim had to call the fire department to get him out using the jaws of life, how Jason got nailed in the nose with a stomp rocket (are you seeing a pattern with Jason here?)…those are just the tip of the iceberg.
I love family stories. Family heirlooms are great and all, but they take up space and can only live with one person at a time. Stories take up no space at all, provide years of laughter and togetherness, and can be carried around and passed down forever and ever, as long as people keep retelling them.
