“To the greatness of our family.”
What was that that Madame just had me overhear? I was at Nello enjoying my date with Red Hot Teddy and was hardly listening to anything other than my own conversation, but this toast, spoken by a family sitting at a table behind me, stated these words with great gusto.
Now, I have a family and if we are out to dinner or somewhere, we often raise a glass and say, “Cheers.” Sometimes, if we are celebrating a special occasion, we raise the glass in honor of that person and whatever he or she accomplished that brought us out to dinner.
Our toasts are quiet, quick, and pass within a moment’s notice. This has always been my reality. Even with my stand-up comic, when we go out to dinner, we will toast to the “week’s end” or to “us” or to “some event happening, like an anniversary.” It’s again quick and quiet. A gesture of good will toward one another.
Nope, not this toast that Madame breezed my way. I think Teddy stopped listening to me for a second even. This was a toast that this family said to one another at the start of their meals. It was not quick nor quiet and the moment held before the chatter began again.
This was a family that believed collectively in their greatness. I was too far away to make out why they thought they were great, but there was no question about it. This family had a collective confidence and an ownership of being great.
It wasn’t one person’s turn to be “great” for the night nor was it a “great” occasion they were celebrating, nor was there anything quick about this toast. This family knew it was great and celebrated it together — almost reaffirming to one another who they are to each other.
My guess is this carries out into the world around them. As I caught words here and there, because, let’s face it, at this point both teddy and me were straining to hear more, they were all soon headed abroad together to somewhere unique in the world. They didn’t have time for all the amazing courses at Nello as they needed to get home, pack, and get to bed early to meet their jet.
Yes, greatness begets a private jet — or at least it did with this family.
I got the sense, and Teddy agreed, that the value of “greatness” had been passed down through the generations of this family. And here they were honoring the tradition of validating their greatness amongst one another.
Given my own familial history, I can’t say we carried the idea that any one of us was great, let alone the collective whole. You may be thinking, Madame was showing me a narcissistic family. One to be avoided. However, I like to think about it as a healthy dose of ego, of strength of ego, and collectively of building one another up.
I did not have that in my family of origin and, given my therapeutic background, my guess is most people, including you who are reading, didn’t have it either.
And, yet, how we all long to be seen as great and the truth is we are great. This family knew it and had embraced it down through the ages. It had become their birthright.
Madame gave me a gift in seeing that toasts can acknowledge more than a moment, but rather a quality that uplifts and validates the good stuff all the time.
“To the greatness of you, your family, us.” Simple. Say it. Often.
