An old family tradition, improved
In truth, this old family tradition was more about Stray-kids than cats. No one in the family was actually that keen on cats; until me that is.
When I was a kid myself (back in the "old days") I remember there always being people, other than family, living at my Nan & Pop's house. Now I realise this in itself is not that unusual; lots of people take in boarders. It was different though, cause the boarders were always friends of my uncle, or cousin, or some other member of the family, and they were usually youngish (early 20's or so. Again, nothing terribly unusual about that either, but the thing that always struck me was these boarders always felt so much more at home with my family than their own.
Then I noticed the same thing seemed to be happening at home too. My two older sisters would bring home their teenage friends from school, as most kids do. The difference was though, a lot of the time they didn't go home. We just kinda "collected" stray kids whose homelife was less than satisfactory, and showed them the love and kindness they never got from their own families.
Don't think for one minute that I'm trying to make out that my family is perfect, or any better off than the next family. We were just an average working class family; Mum, Dad and four kids (all girls), living in a very small 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. Somehow I always knew that my family was different though. We may not have had much money, and both my Mum and Dad worked full time to support us, so us girls had to pull our weight around the house. For such a long time, I can recall wearing my older sisters' "hand-me-downs" or clothes that my Mum made for me. She was a pretty accomplished machinist in her day, and we may not have had the most up-to-date clothes, but we were always clean and well presented. We may not have eaten steak very often, but we never went hungry, and it was never a big deal for Mum to set an extra place at the table.
So what was it that made our house so appealing? What did we have that most of our friends didn't?
We had a home. Not just a house. It was a home filled with love and compassion and there was never a shortage of hugs, kisses, laughter and conversation. The other thing I realised, many years later, was that people always felt comfortable at our house; comfortable in the knowledge that they wouldn't be judged, just accepted for who they were. There was always a bed, a meal and a hot shower, for the friends that couldn't get that at home. My parents became Mum and Dad to all our friends, and I was often told by my friends how lucky I was to have such a wonderful family. They were so right!
Posted at 08:35 pm by
kd58
