According to Russell...

I must be British...

London

Random Neurons Springing Forth on a Sunday Morning.

I started writing the following as a comment to the post by Russell linking to the story about Carolyn’s retirement. As the ideas continued to spring forth, it seemed more universal and relevant as a “front-page” story, as it were. I would enjoy hearing anyone’s reaction/comments.

This is is probably a blinding flash of the obvious, but it occurred to me this morning as I read the article about the retirement of my sister, Carolyn Snow, that the milestones in our lives are important, even though we often want to play them down and may not like the accompanying ceremonies and "fuss" made over us.

When one relates to a family member on a personal basis as opposed to a professional relationship, one can easily forget or overlook the true accomplishments in the other person's life. Our society has addressed that issue with a multitude of ceremonial occasions, (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, graduation, prizes, awards, retirement, and, of course, obituaries), to name a few. Such occasions provide a way to summarize a person's accomplishments or involvement in society beyond what other family members see in a daily family relationship.

The point in all this, if there be a point, is, on one level, to offer my applause, as it were, to my sister Carolyn for a life of many professional accomplishments, and, to make a larger point that the milestones and celebrations we often see as irritations or undo attention to self are important parts of our appreciation of one another. Sadly, especially for those who may not retire from a long held position at one organization, we often wait until we have to write an obit to make such a list.

This is just a wild thought I will probably live to regret voicing, but perhaps there is some way in this family Blog we could highlight the good points in the lives other family members. Jean Crawley did this with humor in describing marriage to my brother, Don. Perhaps the married among us could reflect on the positive influence and actions of their spouse. Or, parents could write about what their children have done, and children could give anecdotes relating the positive influence of parents, grandparents, etc.

I am not suggesting a competitive bragging contest (my dad can whip your dad...anything that would compare against another directly and cause unintended hurt feelings), nor a forum for airing family grievances. But I do think that weaving in positive stories about how a spouse, parent, child, sibling, cousin, niece/nephew, uncle/aunt, whatever, has impacted your life would add some real value to this whole Blog thing.