Like a lot of families, Sunday is a day of rest and reflection for us. Normally, I don’t work on Sundays. I like to reserve Sundays for family day. But this morning was a little different. David was working. It was raining outside. Charlie was sleeping. Gerald was downstairs watching TV.
So I decided to take a little bit of time for me. I wasn’t sitting down thinking, I’m going to work on the blog today. I was simply looking through the holidays coming up this week, thinking about which ones might fit our family and which ones might be something I could share on Greatful Moments.
Then I came across Intergenerational Day. And I had to stop. Because I had no clue what that was making it a #teachingmoment for my family because Charlie and David didn’t know either. That caught my attention. So I started researching it. Before I go on with my story Buttercup do you know what it was?
And before I knew it, something that started as me simply looking through the holiday calendar had turned into a teaching moment for me. If Charlie were still being homeschooled, we could have easily turned this into a lesson plan. Thank the Lord, he has graduated and is turning 19 now, so I don’t have to come up with another homeschool lesson!
But just because Charlie has graduated doesn’t mean this holiday no longer has meaning for our family. It does. In fact, the more I learned about Intergenerational Day, the more I realized that it was a teaching moment not only for me, but for David and Charlie as well. And that is why I decided to share it with you this morning.
I think we sometimes believe a teaching moment has to come from a textbook, a classroom, or a carefully planned activity. It doesn’t. Sometimes you’re sitting at home on a rainy Sunday morning. Sometimes you’re looking through a list of holidays. Sometimes you see a word you’ve never heard before and think, What does that mean? So you look it up. And then you learn something new you can share with your friends and family.
That’s exactly what happened to me today. I may not know everything. I don’t plan on saying that I do. But I believe there is something wonderful about learning right alongside your family. When I discover something new, I want to understand it. And when I find something that touches my heart or might teach someone else something, I want to share it. That’s one of the reasons I write Greatful Moments.
Once I understood what Intergenerational Day was about, I started thinking about our own family. I thought about my mom and dad. I thought about David’s parents. And I smiled because David and I actually grew up in the same area just one Town over from each other and what people might call a hop, a skip and a jump as to how close we was.
We went to the same high school. Our families weren’t completely different from one another. Actually, one of the funny things about David and me getting together was discovering just how much alike our families really were. We had so many things in common. And looking back now, I think that’s pretty special. Sometimes we don’t realize how much of our family history is woven into who we become until we stop and look at it.
When you’re growing up, you don’t always think about generations. You think about Mom and Dad. You think about Grandma and Grandpa. You think about the family members who are there with you. You don’t always stop and think about how much history those people are carrying with them.
They have memories from before we were born. They know things about their parents and grandparents. They remember what life was like when things were different. They remember family stories that may never have been written down. And once those people are gone, some of those stories go with them. That is something I wish I had understood sooner.
As I thought about Intergenerational Day, I couldn’t help but think about all the stories from our family that we never wrote down. There are things I remember about my mom and dad. There are things I remember about David’s family. There are family stories that I can still tell. But there are also things I don’t know. There are stories I wish I could hear again. There are questions I wish I had asked. There are things I wish someone had written down.
When you’re younger, you just don’t think that way. You think you’ll have another chance. Another Christmas. Another birthday. Another visit. Another afternoon. You don’t necessarily think, I need to write this down because one day nobody will be here to tell it. But sometimes that day comes.
Thinking about generations also brings Suzanne into my heart. There are things I wish I had known about Suzanne. There are things I wish I had written down. She was only 16 when she died. I wish I had more pictures of her and even Charlie from when he got older.
When you lose someone that young, you know there are going to be things you never get to ask. You know there will be memories you wish you could go back and capture. And then there are the generations connected to her that we have lost as well. Suzanne’s grandparents had memories and stories. They knew things about the family. They carried pieces of our history. And we didn’t take the time to write all of those stories down before they were gone.
We don’t have those stories from our grandparents now. That is something that makes me sad. Not because we didn’t love them. We did. We simply didn’t realize at the time how valuable those stories would become. That is another reason this holiday means something to me.
I want Charlie to know the people who came before him. I want him to know about our family. I want him to know where some of the stories come from. I want him to know the people whose lives helped shape ours. And I don’t just mean the names and dates. I mean the little things. The stories. The memories. The funny things people did. The family traditions. The things that made our family our family.
Because one day, those things may matter to Charlie in ways he can’t imagine right now. Just like they matter to me more now than they did when I was younger. That’s what I really took away from learning about Intergenerational Day. It isn’t just about older generations teaching younger generations. There is something to learn in both directions.
David and I have lived longer than Charlie. We’ve experienced things he hasn’t. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve learned lessons. We’ve watched the world change. But Charlie has grown up in a different time. He has experiences we didn’t have at his age. He understands things that weren’t part of our world when we were young. And that’s okay. We don’t have to be exactly alike. We don’t have to understand everything the same way. We simply have to be willing to listen to one another.
I think that’s one of the biggest lessons I took from this holiday. We should listen more. Not just to the person older than us. Not just to the person younger than us. But to the people sitting right around our own kitchen tables. Ask questions. Tell stories. Look at old photographs together. Talk about the things you remember. Because someday, those ordinary conversations may become some of the most important memories someone has.
I didn’t set out this morning to learn about generations. I was looking through holidays. That’s it. But I came across a holiday I had never heard of, and instead of skipping over it, I stopped and learned something. That became a teaching moment for me. Then it became something I could think about with David and Charlie. And now it has become something I can share with you.
That’s what I love about learning. You don’t have to know everything. I certainly don’t. You just have to be willing to stop and say, “I don’t know. Let me find out.” And then maybe what you learn can help somebody else. Now I want to hear from you. What does Intergenerational Day mean to you and your family?
Did this holiday make you stop and think about your parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, or other family members? Do you have family stories that have been passed down through the years? Are there stories you wish you had written down before someone passed away? And who in your family has taught you something that you still carry with you today? Come share it with me.
Because I didn’t know what Intergenerational Day meant when I woke up this morning. Now I do. And I’m grateful, thankful and blessed that I took the time to learn something new from the LORD. Maybe that’s the real teaching moment. Sometimes we learn something new simply because we were curious enough to ask a question. And sometimes the lesson stays with us long after we close the computer.
Grateful, Thankful, and Blessed,
GreatfulMoments.com
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
