Reunions

Sydney and his daughter enjoying a moment at the 2005 Reunion

I recall at the 2005 reunion I overheard one of the younger family members asking his grandmother, “if they had reunions when she was in Jamaica” , to which I thought the question was an interesting one.

His grandmother briefly explained to him “while they didn’t have “family reunion” we often had weekly family gatherings.” Back in those days, it was not strange to see someone more than once or twice a week. Since Jamaica was such a small island, family would see each other all the time. Then came the time when most of us moved to America and England which made it harder for us to get together. The only time family might get to see each other would be at someone’s wedding or at funerals. The dictionary defines reunions as the “reuniting of persons after separation.”

This is why we thought it was imperative that we started having family reunions. No longer will we reunite only at weddings or funerals, we will reunite between those time too! With the family being spread out all over the world, we can truly take advantage of coming together this way to celebrate our past, present and future. When thinking about what it means to have reunions there are many positive reasons to speak of. If we had to sum it up in one sentence, perhaps we could put it in these words…”Reunions create empowerment in families by building new relationships that may be used to strengthen the overall position of ones family.”