Keeping family ties amid great distance

I'm feeling so sad that I'll be missing one important event in my kids' growing years, their annual piano recital this coming weekend. But I make it a point that no matter what, we'll be together to spend the Christmas holidays and the New Year - at a place my kids are not certain if they miss it - the beautiful city of the generals. Yes, we'll be flying all the way to GenSan not only to attend a wedding of someone close to us but to visit our relatives and friends there we've missed over the years. We have a lot of plans to do in GenSan during our visit there. It includes visiting our kids' grannies and cousins, going to the farm our new family member will see for the first time and the beach our two kids have missed so much as we used to go there when they were still toddlers until their early grade years. Now they're on their early teens. We're also happy to introduce their baby brother to our clans in both sides of the family they haven't met yet. And know what? Our 2 early teens are more excited to introduce their sibling to their classmates and friends than to their relatives. How geographical distance separates kins! This gives me and hubby more reason to make them bond with their cousins and relatives they haven't seen for years. Otherwise, they would become much closer to their friends than to their kin.

Oh, how time flies!  I now dread to think of missing my kids' yearning to go with me and their dad wherever we had to go. It started last summer when they were with us here in our workplace that we noticed that they're no longer the same. They would rather stay at home and do their own activity apart from us. Then, at school days if I'm with them, they're no longer the same small kids who would grab my hand pleading me to send them off to school and beg off to pick them up after school. And instead of coming home early excited to see me back home, they now prefer to hang out with their friends. Such a bitter-sweet reality! Now they're no longer worried that dad and/or mom won't be able to attend their recital or their birthday. Anyway, they're happy to see that their friends are around to cheer them up.

Oh, we must accept the reality that our kids are growing up fast! But we must let them grasp the values we want them to embrace especially in tracing back their roots, getting close to their kins and learning to look back where they came from. We parents are bound to the close family ties and we want to pass it on to our next generations at all costs. We should not allow the years to slip by blinded with our busy days making a living and neglecting this family duty to keep the ties. After all, earthly treasures just slip by, too, but the joys shared with loved ones are cherished sealing the ties forever.