What is a family gathering...

     Why bother...

What do we gain out of the experience...

     Well there are many answers...

Answers to that question...

     Each person attending will have...

Have a different answer...

Many different people attend...

     Their personalities and lives are...

Are as different as the dishes they bring...

     Bring for the covered dish lunch,,,

Actually more like a feast than a lunch...

What do people take away...

     Away from these yearly gatherings...

Well the little cousins have a bouncy house...

     They are building cousin foundations...

Foundations for friendships...

     Foundations for why they will...

Will know it is important to bring...

     Bring their children here someday...

The family foundations are like tree roots...

Family tree roots are important...

     All families have human hurricanes...

These family tree roots need strength...

     When the winds blow...

Every family tree needs roots...

After the family eats...

     Young adults chat while they clean...

They are strengthening their roots...

     Children play games...

Teens share secrets...

     Grandparents sit and watch...

Watch the family they helped...

     Helped build and mold...

Grandparents have tails to swap...

     Grandparents are happy...

Happy they have lived...

     Lived long enough to see...

See this family grow...

     Grow to have solid roots...

Grow to know love...

     Grow to survive some strong winds...

Grow to survive the human storms...   

They look at the family's future...

     They watch and they smile...

Privately they smile...

---More About Judge Rembert: WWII made Judge an only child when her half-brother was killed in the war.  She lived in a tiny town in South Carolina until she was eight and her Mother went to work.  She was sent to a boarding school in Belmont, N.C.  From that time on she has lived back and forth in the two Carolinas.  They are both home.  She was born dyslexic and did not know what the problem was or that it had a name until she was about 45.  She was unable to spell so she never put words on paper until she was 65 and had a computer with spell check.  She comes from a long line of story tellers and a Mother that taught her much by telling stories.  Stories about people and how they faced life and how they dealt with problems.  If you read what she writes you may hear her Mother and her Grandmother talking to her.  She is thrilled to know that anyone reads her words and finds them interesting.  Oh, she is 82 now and makes her home in Aiken, S.C.