The Family: The Fabric of Our Lives

"The family is an original sign, given by the Creator himself. This is the normal vocation, without which history would come to an end." Monsignor Luigi Giussani

Yesterday, I received the inspiration for the title of this meditation from my sister in Christ, Tete Ramos. This is the reason why I can't do this journey alone. The Holy Spirit talks to me through each of you. When she mentioned that the family is the fabric of our lives, I knew that would be the title for my next meditation. You see, I grew up surrounded by fabrics, threads and needles. My grandmother was a seamstress and she lived with us. Almost every Saturday, I would take the bus with her and my mom, and we would go to Downtown Miami to visit all the fabric shops. She just loved fabrics. She had drawers full of fabric that she claimed she would use on future projects. Eventually, she did. A lot of those fabrics turned into dresses for me and my mom, and once I had kids, they turned into pajamas and shirts for my boys, and into dresses and nightgowns for my daughter.

One of the things I truly enjoyed, was to watch her turn a piece of fabric into a beautiful creation. She would cut, stitch, cut some more, add a few more stitches, and voila, that plain fabric would become a beautiful dress or a beautiful shirt. Sometimes, out of the same fabric, she would create various pieces of clothing. My kids used to have matching pajamas made out of the same material or she would create a dress for my daughter and shirts for my boys using the same piece of cloth.

It is the same with us. We begin as a plain piece of fabric. But our Creator, with a few cuts and a few stitches, weaves us into a beautiful person. Each of us is a unique pattern but within our family, we all come from the same fabric. As my kids grew, sometimes my grandmother would alter their clothing, if it was still in good condition, by increasing the hemline or adding more fabric. As we get older, the fabric of our lives also needs to be altered. New threads may need to be added while old threads may need to be removed. Our life is a continuous weaving process of new patterns and designs.

Our family comprises the real fabric of our lives. Just like in a group of butterflies each one is a different color, a different size or a different texture, in the fabric of our family, we are each a different pattern, a different thread or a different fiber, but we are all still weaved together because we are part of the same fabric spool.