I keep seeing friends online participating in front porch family photography. These family portrait moments are creating beautiful memories amidst the current challenging times. With the news pushing more deaths and less happiness, it’s no wonder some of us are trying to see the light right now.

Sure we’re stuck at home. Sure we’ve been around our family working from home and helping with remote learning for months, but there’s something magical about having this time with our family.

The strength of family may just perhaps be ignited again. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories that my Great Grandmother would share about her childhood, and I loved that we gathered with my grandparents during holidays in childhood. I have so many precious family memories from my growing up years, that I’m sort of sad my kids didn’t experience that same extended family bond.

Family is Community

The family is a community. This community is made up of children, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and if you’re lucky great-great-grandparents. I know that I’m blessed to have known my great parents and that my children were able to know their great-great-grandparents before they passed away.

Family is Precious

Family is something precious that so many have taken for granted over the years. I know that some family members can be toxic to our mental health. I can’t speak for your experiences. I can say that I have some toxic family members too, they certainly drain my positive light, but I was raised to love family without conditions. I was raised that when a family member goes down, you’re there to help them even if you’re lecturing or yelling at them on the way back from the rescue mission.

Family is Unconditional

The love of a family something that helped me become the person I am today. Without the extended unconditional love and strength some people saw in me such as Great Aunts, Aunts, Great Grandparents, Grandparents, and so on, I’d probably not have turned out so headstrong and confident. It was the love and support with a side of tough love from my extended family that assisted my parents in raising me to be who I am today.

I feel forever blessed to have this old school mentality of a family because it’s something few seem to have these days. My children may not have had the blessings of a close-knit relationship with many of the extended family members, but they did grow up to have a strong connection with the four walls we’ve called home.

I’m blessed to watch my three kids grow up in a home where they feel confident expressing their opinions, being who they are, and not worrying about whether Mom or Dad will love them. These kids were raised to be who they are; independent human beings.

The love of family is something one can never take away from you, even after death, those you loved dearly remains in memory forever within your mind and soul. I see all of these front porch family portraits being taken and I just smile big, my heart gets the warm fuzzies and again I can see that the concept of family and the importance of family is being shown to the world.

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Albeit this is happening during a crisis, but I’ll take the positive that’s coming from this pandemic because then when the darkness subsides, what remains is this strong family unit all over the world. I hope to see more emphasis on the family when the crisis disappears and we return to a new normal because that will make the world just a little better.