For 26 years, a family gathers together

Our family has just returned from an annual trip to Charleston, S.C., trips we have been making for 26 years. The tradition began when my brother moved to Charleston and invited us — our parents and siblings and their families — to celebrate Christmas and the completion of repairs on his historic house, which had been clobbered by Hurricane Hugo.

The first trip was a long haul down Interstate 95, a grand dinner at our brother's renovated house, and a long return trip back home. All of us were enchanted by Charleston, though many of its most magnificent homes, churches and vistas were screened by scaffolding as the years-long process of recovery from Hugo went forward. Despite the long road trips, all of us were eager to continue the new tradition, which evolved into an annual late-December weekend (not just one day) in charming Charleston with dinner at a private club.

The cast has changed. Our own children, who were 12, 15 and 19 that first time, now have children of their own, ages 8 to 12. Similarly, my siblings' children have grown up, married, divorced, and produced children of their own. The annual dinner now requires seating for 25 or more.

Charleston has its charms, but the primary attraction of this December weekend lies in the fact that we see some of these nieces and nephews and their children only in Charleston. During a Friday night conversation with a half dozen of our entourage, I had to remind myself that I was talking to my eldest niece and not to her mother, who died six years ago. The voice, expressions and laugh were all the same, and I felt both a longing to see my sister-in-law again and the comfort that her personality and spirit remains.

Our parents died in 2006 after a decade of decline. My sister-in-law died in 2011, and her husband died unexpectedly a year later. Then my younger sister died shortly after a cancer diagnosis in 2013. With each death, the Charleston weekend had been more difficult but also more important. We know how ephemeral our lives are and how uncertain next year might be.

Soon after returning from Charleston on Sunday, my wife happened across a digital photo album of pictures taken during our 2010 Charleston weekend. Seeing my brother, his wife and my sister enjoying the family again made me gasp. The photos of our grandchildren as toddlers and preschoolers evoked almost as much emotion. But I was so glad to see the pictures of so many smiling faces and conversations.

This is our family, and neither death nor distance can change that.