A Family Legacy
I am originally from the south, and especially back when I was growing up, women were pretty much expected to graduate from high school, get married, have kids and run the home. I remember my grandparents asking me if I was planning to be an old maid when I was 22 or so because I wasn't yet married. If you asked me when I was a kid, I would have said I wanted to be a wife and a mom and I never really had any career aspirations. It also felt like in the south that people talked a lot about leaving a legacy and that legacy was largely left through your children and how they would impact the world.
Fast forward all of these years later, and I have a doctorate, a career, and I am not married nor do I have any kids. There is a lot of story in those years for me to be here in this place, but that story is not necessary for this blog. :) Rather, I would like to share what I have learned about family and legacy.
I have discovered that I am my own family unit. Even if I don't have a spouse or kids, I can create my own traditions. I can value myself and consider what is best for me and what I need for holidays or vacations. I am not less than because I am single, and in fact, I love getting to fulfill my own holiday bucket list every Christmas! Additionally, I have 4 kids - they just happen to have fur. :) And together, we make up a family.
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| Rizzo, Charlie and Jack Jack |
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| Copper |
I have also learned that we have the ability to leave a legacy in many different ways. I have had the privilege of walking with clients for 14 years now, as well as supervising and training counselors and now teaching counselors-to-be. My legacy exists in each of them - as we have walked together through journeys of healing, struggle, pain, joy, and all that life brings with courage and hope.
On this trip to Greece, our students have learned what it means to be a family. We all come from different places, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, etc. And yet we have created a family for this moment in time as we have walked through our days in Greece. We have confronted pain, fears, attachment wounds, different perspectives, and through it all, we have found acceptance, joy, a deeper understanding of self and God and most of all, we have experienced love. This group of 16 will be forever bonded, and it doesn't matter if we aren't related by blood - we are family.
As these students continue to train to be counselors and ultimately go on to see clients, it is our prayer that they will take these lessons with them as they sit with others who may appear to be vastly different than them. And in that process, they will continue to discover that at the end of it all, we are all ultimately a family that is bound by love.
For the last few years in Greece, I have gotten a tattoo to symbolize something meaningful that I don't want to forget. Pictured below is my tattoo from this trip. It is my reminder that my fur babies are my family, that I am a family, that love is what makes a family...and that my family is bigger than I could have ever imagined back when I was a little girl. And that big family - that's our legacy.
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