12 Family Moments That Prove the Biggest Lessons Come From Compassion and Understanding

• After 40 years of putting our kids first, my hubby & I finally booked a trip alone. Then our daughter begged us to cancel. Her son was sick. We refused. She came the night before to convince us.
  At the airport, security flagged my bag. My daughter dared to leave my grandson’s favorite toy in my bag with a note inside. Security flagged it because of the battery. I cried when I read: “After 40 years choosing us, you chose yourself once.”

• My parents had been friends since they were 14 and had me unexpectedly at 21. They did their best to stay together but broke up when I was 3. But they stayed best friends.
  It’s been 20 years since they broke up and they still call each other every day on the way to work, they meet up to get dinner and catch up. I feel really lucky I never had to deal with parents that hated each other and battled over the kids.

• My dad told me he was proud of me every night before bed. When he got mad at me he’d send me to my room and come talk to me when he had calmed down. He owned up when he lost his temper and apologized for it.
  He taught me to love what I love, and not be ashamed of quirky hobbies. He taught me to take responsibility for my actions, to be generous, to tell those you love that you love them early and often.
  He sang in the kitchen on Saturday mornings and made us breakfast. He read to us at bedtime. He played pranks on us and told absolutely ridiculous jokes and loved to laugh. He took us fishing and showed up for silly school plays.
  When I taught swimming lessons I caught him standing with the parents of the toddlers in my class, beaming at me. He timed my races at swim meets, told me how good I did and told me when I needed to improve. When I started college he would get so excited to talk about what I learned.
  He wasn’t perfect -he was a single parent raising two little girls alone for a long time- he had work trips and late nights and didn’t manage to cook very often. But he was there. And he was the greatest.

• My parents support me no matter what I do. There’s one conversation I had with my dad when I was younger that I’ll never forget.
  Me: Dad I heard garbagemen make like 50 dollars an hour, what if I never go to college and be a garbageman?
  Dad: Well then you be the best garbageman you can be.
  Edit: lol I did not become the best garbageman, I’m in marketing but I’m the best ad man I can be right now though and he’s happy with me.

• I’m an only child and female. My dad never treated me differently. He introduced me to sci-fi and video games and when I became interested in space we got a telescope. 100% full support.
  My mom was 100% about education. You WILL go to college. She didn’t have a degree herself and always hated feeling like she was locked into her low-paying blind-alley job.
  My grandmother said my mom needed to have a son to carry on the family name, my grandfather told me I could only be a nurse or a teacher because I was a girl. Thankfully my parents continuously reinforced that I could do whatever I wanted and that’s why I’m an engineer today.

• When I was younger I was really shy and didn’t start speaking until a late age (like 3 or so). I often refused to participate and rather did my own thing, so they initially believed I was autistic.
  I think around the time I was in kindergarten or first grade, the school recommended that I be put in special education. My dad flat out said, “No. I want to see him fail first before I consider special classes.”
  They regarded him as the devil, but I was not put in special ed. Years later, I finished high school with a 4.01 GPA, didn’t get held back once. I got into the college I wanted, graduated with a Bachelor’s.
  I currently make $103K a year with a job that I love. Sometimes I think that if they blindly accepted the school’s recommendation I wouldn’t be where I am today.

• My parents only graduated high school. They have been super supportive.
  I went back to school after having 2 kids. During my undergrad, my mom would schedule her vacation times around my finals and stay with me to babysit, cook, etc.
  In grad school, my dad looked up what I was studying, and recently my PI got an award, I found out from him because he follows my lab on social media.
  My husband also meal prepped for me, packed my lunches and cooked dinner most nights. I was pretty lucky.

• I think my family is unusually close emotionally. Dinner together as often as possible, talk often, play music together, and we get along really well. At one point my parents, all 4 adult children, and 6 grandchildren lived in the family home because we were all in major transition periods and needed a short-term jumping-off point.

• When I was a kid, my aunt — my dad’s sister-in-law — ran into financial issues. In the midst of this, we were all at the hospital visiting my grandpa, and we were amassed in the cafeteria when my aunt went over to grab a sandwich.
  As my aunt approached the cashier, my dad, who so often would not spend money on himself, quietly got up from his seat, walked over to the cashier, and paid for my aunt’s sandwich before returning to his seat without any fanfare.
  To this day, I still don’t know if he saw me see him do that (note: Dad doesn’t take compliments well — he gets embarrassed by them and tends to deflect them towards other people or dismiss them).

• My aunt is just the sweetest person alive. We’re a big family and all live very close to each other. My many cousins and I always got together at her place and she’s just like a hip and caring second mum to us.
  Whenever we bring friends or a new so she’s greeting them with open arms and jokes with them to make them feel welcome and part of the family. She’s always got a shoulder to lean on and surprises you with baging dirty or dark humor when no one is expecting it.
  Except from all of this stuff she’s pretty independent even though she’s been with my uncle for over 25 years now. We just love her.

• When I was about four years old, I “found” a cat. She kept wandering into our garage and eating our dog food. Finally, after my brother and I begged persistently, my mom said I could keep her. My first pet!! I loved this cat so much!!
  One day, the neighbor boy came over to play with my big brother and announced that my beloved kitty was actually his lost cat, Fluffy, and that he would be taking Fluffy home with him. I was devastated. I cried for hours — the entire time the neighbor boy was upstairs playing video games with my big brother.
  When he came back downstairs, he told me that he had thought it over and decided that Fluffy was happier with me. He told me to take good care of her and he left.
  A few years ago, I learned that my brother had traded the neighbor boy a brand new Nintendo game for the cat. It had just come out and the neighbor’s parents wouldn’t buy it for him.
  My brothers and I went through some difficult times as kids, and we had a challenging relationship at times, but I’ll never forget that he got me my first pet.

Family can be a little weird, wonderfully chaotic, and occasionally impossible to understand—but when it comes to love, they have a way of showing up in the sweetest ways. Sometimes, the tiniest bit of kindness says more than a thousand words like these 15 heartfelt family moments that prove love carries us through the heaviest days.