For me, Thanksgiving is a celebration of those times and we, the families of today, are the new pilgrims. We attempt to chart a safe passage through a new world that we cannot even imagine. Our feelings mirror the feelings of commitment and uncertainty of those first pilgrims. The struggles of those first pilgrim families, harsh as they were, do not differ greatly from the struggles experienced by families today. We, like they, know that survival is contingent upon learning to blend our new experiences with the wisdom learned from the past.
Survival includes the survival of our values and family root systems.
Each family, regardless of its configuration, has its own unique story and its own unique place in the cornerstone of society. The future of humanity passes by way of a family. Each family's journey is a series of bridges linking generations through the endless evolution of time. The story of family life is the story of love shared, nurtured and sometimes rejected or lost as each new generation struggles for its own identity. People continue to choose to be family.