essay on family reunion

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My First Family Reunion – Essay Sample

Topic: Family

Thesis Statement: Family is very important, as it says in the Bible: “A house that is divided cannot stand”.

• I attended my first family reunion when I was twelve years old. This was no ordinary family reunion; it involved my extended family, and lasted overnight. It was an overall fun experience and it brought me closer to my family
• “A family that prays together stays together”, grandmother would always say
• Today I will be speaking about the family reunion which brought my family and I closer together
• Sadly, not all people, especially teenagers appreciate their family
• Getting Acquainted night was our first gathering
• I did not realize how many family members I had, and was overwhelmed at first
• I was reluctant to be involved and stayed close to my immediate family
• I honestly did not want to be where I was, and it felt awkward
• After some time, I started liking it when we got a bit more involved in the activities
• We played icebreaker games and there were a few speeches
• The night turned out pretty fun
• The family picnic was probably the most fun part of the reunion
• After experiencing a gist of the reunion the night before, I was ready to be more involved
• I got to know family members who I did not know I had
• After a day, it was as if I knew them my whole life
• This part of the reunion was most probably the most active
• Games were held again, and it was all good times
• I did not want it to end
• The family banquet was a formal event, and it closed the family reunion
• The whole family gathered at a formal banquet where closing remarks were made
• We spoke about the good time we had during the activities
• It was concluded that we should do something like this more often
• After this whole time, grandmother, who was one of the eldest members in the family reiterated the importance of the family
• Because of all the games and activities, I did not realize that this reunion actually served a deeper purpose
• For me, it was just a very fun event, however after much thought, I knew it meant something more
• A family that prays together stays together. We made this happen by gathering all the members of our family, and joining together in meals and in good times
• “A house that is divided cannot stand”, and family is a very important part of anyone’s life
• Has any event in your life brought you closer to your family?

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The Importance of Reunions: High School, Family, and Friends

What can be gained by attending them..

Posted April 13, 2018 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

• Ben is a 43-year-old man who just received an announcement for his 25-year high school reunion. It’s been years since he saw his old classmates and he has mixed feelings about attending.
• Jennie and Pat grew up on the East Coast but moved to Oregon to attend college where they met and married upon graduation. Although they keep in touch with their immediate families, they have not kept up with other relatives. A distant cousin sent them an invitation to attend an extended family reunion weekend in Massachusetts. It sounds interesting, but it may be too difficult to take their four children there.
• Monica, Cynthia, and Candy were best friends growing up. Despite going to different colleges and settling in different states, they have kept up with one another through phone calls, emails, cards, and photos. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen one another in person because all three are married, have children, and are working. They talk about having a reunion, but nothing has happened yet.

All three stories reflect problematic issues related to reunions:

• Ambivalence about attending a reunion
• Difficulties in attending a reunion
• Lack of commitment to organize or implement a reunion

Attending reunions can present psychological, financial, and logistical problems. That is clearly not the intent of reunions; yet, these issues often exist. Why?

High school reunions tend to bring up old memories, some of which may be unpleasant—like seeing the “mean girls” who used to make fun of you or the girl who turned you down when you asked her to the prom.

People may also be reluctant to go to their high school reunion because of feeling embarrassed about their physical appearance or insecurity about their lack of achievements since graduation. The idea that individuals will be compared now to their adolescent self or their grown classmates may carry the risk for regretting how their life turned out.

On the other hand, high school reunions can be eye-opening. We usually develop wisdom and maturity as we age. Encountering our former classmates and recalling old memories, good and bad, may help us gain better insight into who we are now and how we got here.

High school reunions can also be fun. It can be a time to go down “ memory lane.” That is, to reminiscence about people we knew as well as our mutual history in such things as music and historical events. In fact, renewing old friendships and reliving the fun and feelings we had in high school are two of the most common reasons people attend their high school reunions (Lamb & Reeder, 1986).

Family reunions are another type of reunion that can be psychologically and educationally fulfilling:

• They bring together relatives who have never met (e.g., new members of the family, newborns) and demonstrate the extensiveness of one’s sphere of relatives.
• They encourage communication among extended family members after the reunion period.
• They provide educational opportunities for the various generations to learn about the members of their clan and pass on historical information.
• They celebrate the meaning of family by sharing memories and family rituals as well as encouraging a sense of belonging to something greater than your nuclear family.

A third type of reunion is one where long-time friends physically get together and reconnect. Although we live in a multi-mode communication (e.g., emails, Facetime, telephone calls, social media , texts) era, there is no substitute for the physical presence and an extended period to spend together. The opportunity to engage in conversations that are not time-restricted encourage deeper communication. Even mundane activities, like going for a walk or taking a long drive, can stimulate the friends to reminisce or discuss their feelings and thoughts beyond a superficial level.

Reunions with old friends inevitably bring up people and issues of our past. Such friends may recall memories of us, our family members, and other people we knew, as well as events that happened to us. A reunion with friends is different than high school or family reunions. This reunion involves friends who have known us for a long time and have seen us through an entirely different lens than that used by our former classmates or relatives. The perspective of long-time friends can be very enlightening. It may not only reveal information about us and how we have changed, but also similar information about our friends. Discussing and knowing this can lead to greater intimacy and respect for one another.

Reunions of any kind are not always easy to arrange because of the cost and managing the details. In order to increase attendance:

• Keep costs low to accommodate most people’s budget.
• Encourage people to submit ideas and preferences for activities.
• Look for convenient places and times when as many people as possible can attend.
• Devote most of the time to activities that promote connection among the attendees; especially, those that focus on sharing old and making new memories.
• Attend with the plan to not re-hash unpleasant events or topics.
• Seek out people you like and care about.

Generally, reunions can be highly valuable to our well-being. For those who want to learn more about themselves and make stronger connections with others, reunions can be a powerful vehicle for accomplishing this.

Kluin, J. Y., & Lehto, X. Y. (2012). Measuring family reunion travel motivations. Annals of Tourism Research, 39, 820-841. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2011.09.008.

Lamb, D. H., & Reeder, G. D. (1986, June). Reliving golden days. Psychology Today, 22-26, 30.

McCutcheon, L. E., Pope, T. J., Grant, R., & Simplis, K. (2016). Does savoring predict attendance at high school reunions and the tendency to admire celebrities? North American Journal of Psychology, 18, 295-306.

Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. , are psychology professors at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

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An Ode to the Family Reunion

These days, it’s all too easy to swap facetime for face time—but maintaining genuine connections with loved ones remains important. here, one writer makes the case for getting the whole family together once a year..

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Since the early 1980s, the Healys have organized a family reunion every year without fail.

Courtesy of Annie Daly; design by Emily Blevins

Every single year without fail, my extended family on my mom’s side gets together for a family reunion during the first weekend of August. There are about 40 of us total, give or take, spanning four generations, and when I let people in on this fact, they are often blown away. “Every year?” they’ll ask, incredulous, their eyes widening. “Really? That many people, every year?”

Yes, really.

Perhaps due to our increasingly busy, on-the-move culture, I’ve found that more and more people are amazed to learn about our annual gathering of extended family; they almost always want to know what it’s actually like. I’m always happy to share—the memories and the traditions that my family have created each year have kept us close and have turned me into a firm believer in the joy of the family reunion.

My 92-year-old grandfather, Otis Healy (whom we all call “Big O”) is our fearless leader, the man behind the magic. A true family guy at heart, he has meticulously planned—and generously paid for—each and every Healy Family Reunion since the tradition began in the early 1980s. The reunions have been a constant for all 34 years of my life, and yet I still don’t take them for granted. I recognize that it’s rare to have a family patriarch who funds a yearly family reunion and to have a family that actually gets along in the first place; I’m deeply grateful to have both.

At a reunion in Kona, the girl cousins—including Daly, front row, third from the left—gained resort renown thanks to a smoothie recipe they concocted.

Photo courtesy Annie Daly; design by Emily Blevins

Our reunions usually take place at a resort or hotel in Southern California, where my mom and her three siblings grew up. While the majority of the family still lives in the area, some members of the crew travel in from New York, Boston, Rhode Island, Dallas, and Virginia. Back in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when there were 11 cousins under the age of 10, the events would often span almost a full week—and usually the resort staff loved being along for the ride. One year, when we were staying at Kona Village Resort on Hawaii’s Big Island , the girl cousins made up a smoothie and named it after ourselves, using the first letter of each of our names. By the end of the week, we were “resort famous” around the property for creating the popular KJAM (Katie, Jennifer, Annie, and Meg) smoothie. We still talk about our “early rise to fame.” (Unfortunately, Kona was washed away by a tsunami in 2011, but may be reopening as a Rosewood property in 2022.)

As the cousins got older, Big O traded in full weeks for one doable weekend, since 100 percent attendance is always the goal. As some of us neared high school age, the festivities got a little more animated, culminating in an infamous cruise to Tijuana. Oh, the cruise! That year, the “Cousin Class of 1985” all turned 18—the legal drinking age in Mexico. We were all a little too enthusiastic about finally being able to drink in front of our parents, and I ended up getting sick . . . on Big O’s feet. Literally on his feet. It’s a running joke in our family to this day.

The laughter continued over the years in other fun and beautiful spots, including Temecula Creek Inn , where we went on a hot air balloon ride over wine country at 5 a.m.; Paradise Point in San Diego, where my newly raw-vegan cousin Kevin introduced us all to the wonders of eating fresh hibiscus straight off the tree; and Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa , where I leaned into the reputation I earned in Tijuana and brought a wine rack as a joke—and even wore it over my dress at our family beach barbecue.

That’s the thing about my family: We all have a silly sense of humor, one that comes out in full force during the reunions. And our opportunities for goofiness increased in 2011 when Big O married his third wife (sadly, he lost both my grandmother Betty and his second wife Barbara to cancer), a wonderful woman named Joann, whom everyone calls “Bombie.” Big O and Bombie decided to combine family forces, bringing the reunion roster up from 23 or so to around 40.

In the past few years, the new, much larger crew has started working together as one big team to choose a secret theme for each reunion to surprise Big O and Bombie. During the 2016 election year, for example, the theme was “Big O for President!” We made election pins; dressed up in red, white, and blue hats for the family photo (there’s always a family photo); and carried a huge banner that read “Big O for President” through The Ranch at Laguna Beach , where we were staying. When he turned 90, the theme was “Absolut Otis—90 Proof,” a tribute to his love of a double vodka on the rocks, which he drinks every day at 5 p.m. on the nose. Once again, we gave the theme the banner treatment, and we also made bottles of “Absolut Otis” vodka as souvenirs.

But no matter what the theme is, certain elements of the reunion never change. Every day we gather at 5 p.m. in the “hospitality suite”—Big O and Bombie’s room. Big O stocks the room with varied snacks from Costco, which always include at least one enormous tub of salted mixed nuts. He’ll also often ask people to give speeches if they did something especially noteworthy in the preceding 12 months. Last year, four of the cousins (myself included) had either just gotten married or were about to do so, and he asked us what we learned about wedding planning and marriage itself. While we had all had slightly different experiences, we agreed that it’s the marriage, not the wedding, that matters. And you have to have a sense of humor to make a marriage work.

In 2011, Big O married Bombie and the family reunion attendees almost doubled, making for even more merriment.

Photo by Tom Daly Photography; design by Emily Blevins

Photo by Tom Daly Photography; design by Emily Blevins In 2011, Big O married Bombie and the family reunion attendees almost doubled, making for even more merriment.

In the end, that’s why our family reunions work, too; we genuinely crack each other up. And we also get down. We usually enlist a resort DJ for the big party on Saturday night, and Uncle Mike busts out the worm. One year, after that ridiculous song “ Red Solo Cup ” came out, we spent hours making red Solo cup gear to surprise Big O and Bombie on the big night. Some of the best times of my life have been out there on that dance floor, laughing my face off with my family, and that’s exactly why Big O keeps planning these reunions year after year after year. “The reunions solidify the word ‘family’ to me,” he told me. “I get such great joy out of seeing everybody together and interacting with one another. . . . It’s as simple as that.”

Sadly, in our busy, all-digital-everything, increasingly disconnected world, that simplicity can be hard to find. And a genuine connection with family—related or chosen, however you define it—is more important than ever. So as a self-appointed Reunion Whisperer, I can assure you that no matter how many miles you have to fly, or days you have to take off from work, or reply-all email chains you have to stay on top of to make your get-togethers happen, it’s worth it. Reunions can take place anywhere, whether that’s your cousin’s grassy backyard or an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere. The point is that they take place—with all of their laughter and their love and maybe even their red Solo cups.

>>Next: The World’s Best Family Hotels

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Family Reunions Are Back! 6 Steps for Making Events Memorable

Early planning and research can make this your best gathering yet.

​​A family reunion is a way to connect, keep ties strong, share insights about family history and just plain enjoy the company of relatives who live near and far.​​

Many families are anxious to get back to holding reunions, both large and small, after postponing them because of the  pandemic . But reunions can be more than  a big party  or a celebration, says Suzanne Vargus Holloman, co-director of the Family Reunion Institute. These family gatherings can encourage attendees to delve into genealogy, address family health issues and foster social supports such as youth mentoring.​

“One of our mottoes is that family reunions are more than a picnic,” Holloman says. “These reunions were organized to pass down history and impart values — to support the family and extended family in the various ways that were needed. But they have grown into major events.”​ ​

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“When are we going to have the reunion?” ​

​Eighty-year-old Rev. Doug Harris says family reunions have been a constant for much of his life. But it wasn’t that way from the start. In fact, he was too busy  falling in love  to attend his family’s first reunion.​

“It was the week I met my wife, and I declined,” says Harris, who lives in Swedesboro, New Jersey, and is a former marketing and communications executive. He may have skipped that family reunion in 1973, but he and his wife, Myrna, have been to dozens of them since. Most were for his father’s family and reunited branches of his African American family from southern Virginia and New Jersey. The most recent took place in August 2021 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and because of COVID-19, it drew only about 50 people — down from a pre-pandemic range of 80 to 100.​

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“It came about because there was a demand,” says Harris, who helped plan last summer’s event. “People kept calling and saying, ‘When are we going to have the reunion?’ ” he recalls. “Finally, in spite of our  concerns about COVID , we went ahead and planned one.”​

Reunions can be major events drawing hundreds of attendees, making them a prime market for the hospitality industry. For example, before the pandemic, people attending reunions in Detroit occupied more than 15,000 room nights annually and generated more than $16 million in direct visitor spending, based on numbers from the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau. That kind of market means visitors and convention bureaus, hotels, restaurants, cruise lines and other attractions are eager to court families, including by offering information sessions and discounts.​ ​

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Focus on planning and organization ​

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Whether you’re planning for 30 or 300, a family reunion requires organization and creativity.​​ Harris’ family has both northern and southern reunion planning committees, since events shift between Virginia and New Jersey and places in between, like the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Harris reunions are usually held every other year and might include a banquet, dancing, a talent show, family updates and news, local tours and church services.​

But for many, event planning doesn’t come naturally. 

“Organizing a reunion takes some learning,” says Edith Wagner, editor of Reunion magazine . Wagner founded the magazine more than 30 years ago in hopes of helping adoptees like herself reunite with their birth families. Today the magazine has expanded to include resources, advice and listings for family, school and military reunions.​ ​

Wagner’s suggestion is to start slowly — don’t try to plan too many activities the first year. “There will be people who will start out and want to do everything, everything in the first reunion,” she says. “And you can’t do that, because you need to build up to a point of people understanding what you’re doing.”​ ​

Experts add that it’s important to include all age groups in reunion planning, particularly young people. They are, after all, the future of the family — and reunions. Harris says the young adults in his family haven’t quite taken up the planning mantle, but they do value keeping in touch with each other, with the help of technology. They have a texting group on GroupMe, for example, he says.​ ​

“They do a lot of checking in on each other,” Harris says. “And sometimes the conversations go on for hours and even days going back and forth.”​

Thinking of organizing a family reunion? Here are some tips to get you started.​ ​

1. Start early

It’s never too soon to start planning, even if it’s just for a backyard barbecue, experts say. If you’re planning a big gathering at a hotel or other venue, they suggest starting as much as two years in advance. A time line can help you keep organized and assign tasks — and avoid surprises.​

2. Make the reunion committee inclusive

A range of ages and incomes will help ensure there are activities that everyone can enjoy and afford, experts say. “You want to have people who represent the youngsters, your families with children, and then our seniors,” says Harris. “People feel it when they are left out.” Also, including younger generations in the planning will prepare them to take over in the future.​

3. Consult the experts

The Family Reunion Institute hosts free virtual workshops on how to organize a reunion. Convention and visitors bureaus and chambers of commerce also sponsor family reunion workshops that showcase hotels, restaurants and attractions and offer tips on organization. Jeffrey Mills, a recently retired marketing expert based near Atlanta, wrote a manual for the hospitality industry on how to attract the reunion market and has also taught at showcases. He focuses on practical tips, including making a reunion attendee spreadsheet that tracks names, addresses and relationships. You can use the information to create a family tree and raise reunion funds by charging a few dollars for copies.​

4. Use technology

Email, social media and texting apps like Facebook Groups and GroupMe can help people stay in touch between reunions and build excitement about upcoming events. Payment apps like PayPal or Venmo make it easier to handle the money, including allowing people to pay over time. Use Zoom or similar apps to keep in touch, to include people who can’t attend in person, and to host events like family cooking lessons.​

5. Seek opportunities to exchange information

The Family Reunion Institute encourages families to share health information. “Oftentimes there are certain medical conditions that run through families, and families can organize to support each other to help prevent possible health conditions,” says Holloman, whose nonprofit promotes research on family reunions and helps families, particularly those of African American descent, organize them.​ The institute was founded by Holloman’s mother, Ione Vargus, professor emerita at Temple University.

6. Celebrate family history

Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems, a podcaster, YouTuber and author, has many tips on how to make history fun at reunions, such as a hopscotch game that requires answering a family trivia question. She also has ideas for genealogy-based souvenirs. One family used a treasured blanket design to create a wrapper for souvenir candy bars. Another gathered and distributed favorite family recipes. “To me, a family reunion isn’t really a family reunion without genealogy,” she says. “The one thing that binds everyone together is that they share ancestors.”​

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My Family Reunion

A family reunion is an occasion where the extended family members congregate such as all cousins, siblings, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents for a meal. A family reunion is a sacred gathering of the household members for reacquaintance to each other and bond reconfirming among them. This gathering is there purposely to reassure love, which flows from one member of the family to the other as it goes beyond biological levels. In that regard, a family reunion is not held purposely to show failure, success, or style but it is for the reassurance of love between family members (Alexander, 2014). Family reunion both national and biological is held for the purpose of reflecting the familys present and past to get a better view of the future. This topic will entirely cover the family reunion and its importance of maintaining relationships.

If this sample essay on "My Family Reunion" doesn’t help, our writers will!

Family reunion as it is the reassurance of love and a bonding event has already occurred on many occasions in different places such as on 26th - 27th July 1986 it was held in Sylvester, Georgia. 4th -6th August 2006 in California, Palmdale; July 25th - 27th July 2008 in Taylor, Michigan. July 9th -11th July 2010 in Sylvester, Georgia; 13th - 15th July 2012 in California, Simi Valley. A family reunion is of great importance as it reunites and maintains relationships between family members. This year the fifteenth Bi-Annual family reunion will be celebrated, and we are looking forward to having a blessed event. Our family from the southern in 2014 in Atlanta Georgia gave us a very memorable and beautiful reunion, which made to have tremendous excitements. A family reunion is about having fun: giving glory to God, dancing, and singing, and bringing together young and old in fellowships.

The theme of the year is faithful servants as we are from different parts of the country, state, and city we should have in mind that we are from houses of two rooms and old barns which housed three generations at the same time. Our great-grandparents and grandparents gave birth to this generation while working hard as slaves. For our sake, they persevered the heat of the day for the betterment of our lives. In that case, that is the blood running through our veins, and we are made from the stock of John Henry Hall, Lillie Johnson Choice, and Mack we are supposed not to forget who we are as we are chosen generations of the holy and royal nation. As peculiar people, we need to show our praises fort to him who has called us from darkness and brought us to his marvelous light. In all, let us maintain the dignity and pride we share with one another. In such terms, when you leave this reunion have in mind that we are vines of strong roots which is the legacy that does not have an end. The family is the integral and most important part of the society where a solid family foundation provides us with wisdom, knowledge, and strength to enable us to travel through the journey of life.

Due to that, the family love and unity make us continue congregating for the purpose of fellowshipping with one another as we share bad and good times together. In that regard, as we come together in a reunion God continue smiling on us and gives us the chance of forgiving one another. During the family reunion, the presence of active mentors and leaders will continue to give foundations that will make Faithful Servants in the Christian journey to grow. A family reunion is an important part of the family heritage because it made me meet some of my family members who I did not know like the loveable great aunt, grandfather, and cousins. The family reunion made me realize forgiving, care, sharing, and love that was passed by my great- grandparents down as they were dancing and singing, talking, laughing and hugging as if they did not have any care in the world. The heritage of my family came from parents whom I did not know as my great- grandparent. Children were taught how to respect others and themselves for them to be respected back. Also, they were taught to live within their means and work towards what they want.

To hold a family reunion nowadays help to fill voids in many households as it provides us with an opportunity to go home psychologically for a few days or hours for the enjoyment of a sense of kinship and revisit memories with other members who we share a family tree (Kluin, & Lehto, 2012). In such terms, through a family reunion the generational gaps are bridged. In an extended family, the reunion is an important thing as it helps members of the family to identify new spouses, newborn babies who have joined and relatives who have died recently. It is a great reminder of shortness of life as well as the family life dynamics (Czabotar, & et al., 2014). Reunion gives an opportunity to see as to why we should keep in touch with other family members throughout. In that regard, when reunions are properly planned they are powerful anchors towards giving an extended family the stability during social turbulence and rapid change. The family reunion has many ideas that make it unique to everyone irrespective of age. Such ideas help in storytelling hence enabling members to know each other well. Such stories are so enjoyable when comes to children as they hear what they have never heard before about family members. However, not all stories that are appropriate it is important to tell the respectful ones that promote relationships.

The important part of household life is Family reunion because it preserves relationships, stories, favorite recipes, and fond memories that may last for generations. Family celebrations and gatherings, when given a chance, provides members with a sense of belonging that is deep, bonds that are strong and lasting, and significant values that can be passed from one generation to the other. In family reunions, many social planned activities are implemented at outdoor picnics in particular (Eliot, 2014). Like face painting, pie-eating contests, egg races, and Potato Sack races are held. Participants besides the obvious fun provide family bonding and laughter with an extraordinary opportunity. Some large families allow nametags to be put on with everyone to assist in identification, which finally personalizes the experience of the reunion. Therefore, a family reunion is of great importance as it makes family members to congregate, connect with one another, and provide an opportunity for each person to share values and memories that last a lifetime.

Alexander, B. K. (2014). Bootlegging Tyler Perry/Tyler Perry as Bootlegger: A Critical Meditation on Madeas Family Reunion. Interpreting Tyler Perry: Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, 15-31.

Czabotar, P. E., Lessene, G., Strasser, A., & Adams, J. M. (2014). Control of apoptosis by the BCL-2 protein family: implications for physiology and therapy. Nature reviews Molecular cell biology, 15(1), 49-63.

Eliot, T. S. (2014). The family reunion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Kluin, J. Y., & Lehto, X. Y. (2012). Measuring family reunion travel motivations. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(2), 820-841.

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Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr with family reunions, new clothes, treats and prayers

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The Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan was celebrated by Muslims on Wednesday with family reunions, new clothes and sweet treats.

In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, nearly three-quarters of the population were traveling for the annual homecoming known locally as “mudik” that is always welcomed with excitement.

“Mudik is not just an annual ritual or tradition for us,” said civil servant Ridho Alfian, who lives in the Jakarta area and was traveling to Lampung province at the southern tip of Sumatra island. “This is a right moment to reconnect, like recharging energy that has been drained almost a year away from home.”

Before the Eid al-Fitr holiday, markets teemed with shoppers buying clothes, shoes, cookies and sweets. People poured out of major cities to return to villages to celebrate the holiday with their loved ones. Flights were overbooked and anxious relatives weighed down with boxes of gifts formed long lines at bus and train stations for the journey.

For Arini Dewi, Eid al-Fitr is a day of victory from economic difficulties during Ramadan. “I’m happy in celebrating Eid holiday despite the surge of food prices,” said the mother of two.

Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla was among Jakarta residents offering prayers at the Al Azhar mosque yard. “Let’s celebrate Eid al-Fitr as a day of victory from many difficulties... of course there are many social problems during fasting month of Ramadan, but we can overcome it with faith and piety,” Kalla said.

On the eve of Eid al-Fitr, Jakarta residents set off firecrackers on streets that were mostly empty after city residents traveled home.

On Wednesday morning, Muslims joined communal prayers shoulder-to-shoulder on the streets and inside mosques. Jakarta’s Istiqlal Grand Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia, was flooded with devotees offering the morning prayers.

Preachers in their sermons called on people to pray for Muslims in Gaza who were suffering after six months of war.

“This is the time for Muslims and non-Muslims to show humanitarian solidarity, because the conflict in Gaza is not a religious war, but a humanitarian problem,” said Jimly Asshiddiqie who chairs the advisory board of the Indonesian Mosque Council.

In Pakistan , authorities have deployed more than 100,000 police and paramilitary forces to keep security at mosques and marketplaces. People were shopping as usual Tuesday, with women buying bangles, jewelry and clothes for themselves and their children.

In Malaysia, ethnic Malay Muslims performed morning prayers at mosques nationwide just weeks after socks printed with the word “Allah” at a convenience store chain sparked a furor. Many found it offensive to associate the word with feet or for it to be used inappropriately.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim called for unity and reconciliation in his message on the eve of Eid, saying no groups should be sidelined based on religion or any other reason.

“We must be firm, resolute and unwavering in our commitment to foster values and build a dignified nation,” he said. “However, let us not take this as a license or opportunity to insult, undermine, or damage the cultural practices and way of life of others.”

The owners of the KK Mart chain and representatives from one of its suppliers were charged with offending the religious feelings of Muslims. KK Mart Group said the supplier sent items the company had not agreed to stock. The supply company founder apologized for being careless in the inspection of the imported items.

Associated Press journalists Andi Jatmiko and Dita Alangkara in Jakarta and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

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After abortion attempts, two women now bound by child

HOUSTON — It had been nearly a year since Evelyn had seen Olivia in person, and she had grown nervous about a planned reunion.

When she finally arrived at the three-story townhouse where a party for the baby she placed for adoption was being held, she was greeted by Carolyn Whiteman, the 44-year-old woman Evelyn had chosen to raise her child. Whiteman held bright-eyed Olivia in the doorway.

“I can’t believe she’s gotten so big. She’s so cute,” Evelyn, 25, said, beaming with tears in her eyes.

For hours, Evelyn’s and Whiteman’s families marveled at Olivia’s eight teeth and how she crawled and grabbed their pant legs to pull herself up on her feet.

“It’s so crazy being here and looking at Olivia,” Evelyn’s dad told Whiteman. “She crawls just the way Evelyn did when she was a baby.” His gaze locked on the infant as her tiny toes gripped the hardwood floors.

But Evelyn’s dad, a retired military veteran, resisted the urge to hold the infant, rebuffing Evelyn’s encouragement until the end of the party. He was confident in his daughter’s choice but didn’t want to become attached to a grandchild he couldn’t help raise.

A year earlier, Evelyn had been consumed by guilt, depression and hopelessness, she recalled in months of interviews. Her world had shattered when two lines appeared on a home pregnancy test.

She lied and hid the pregnancy from her parents for 34 weeks and traveled to two states to try to end it. She detached herself from the baby growing inside her, ignoring the flutters of movement in her expanding stomach.

Her repeated attempts to have an abortion were thwarted by Texas’s six-week ban and a pregnancy clock that worked against her. She and her immediate family spoke to The Washington Post on the condition that their last name would be withheld to protect her privacy.

Now, here she was with a woman she barely knew, visiting the child she birthed despite all of her plans.

The women, Evelyn and Whiteman, couldn’t be more different.

Evelyn, half-Native American and half-Black, with curly, sandy brown hair, felt internally broken as the weight of unmet expectations and the fear of the unknown seemed to overtake her when she accidentally became pregnant. While Evelyn struggled academically, Whiteman had degrees, a community of friends, and a supportive, boisterous Grenadian family. But after struggling to find a Black sperm donor, she would stand in the entryway of the empty guest bedroom in her newly constructed home, praying and longing for a baby.

Now Evelyn and Whiteman were bound together, by a child.

Evelyn spent most of 2022 terrified.

After graduating from high school, she enrolled in a San Antonio community college. But she says she wasn’t motivated, sometimes skipping classes and hanging out with people she knew weren’t the best for her. By January of that year, she was on academic dismissal — for the third time — after her grade-point average dropped below 2.0. This time, she would have to sit out an entire academic year.

Evelyn began talking to a guy she met on social media. They dated for a few weeks and had casual sex.

A few weeks later, in February, the air in her body seemed to disappear as she stared at the positive pregnancy test on her bathroom counter.

A single thought swirled through her head: I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child.

Her relationship, brief and tumultuous, went downhill swiftly and ended after she told him about the pregnancy. She immediately began making plans to have an abortion.

She decided not to tell her parents. Her mom (a nurse) and her dad (a former pilot) were retired military veterans who had struggled to conceive. They were in their mid-40s when they adopted Evelyn at 3 weeks old.

Although Evelyn had always felt close to them, she was petrified to tell them about the pregnancy.

“My parents are in their early 70s. I didn’t have a job or any money. I didn’t want to put it on them to raise the baby,” Evelyn remembers thinking. She felt ashamed.

A friend, Bianca Hernandez, accompanied her to Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services, in San Antonio three days after the positive pregnancy test. Around 8 a.m., Hernandez says she watched Evelyn walk past screaming protesters holding antiabortion signs and into the clinic.

Evelyn knew about the new law. A few months before she entered the clinic, Texas had become the first state in history to ban abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy. It was one of the most restrictive abortion laws to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

Abortion clinics were bombarded with calls from women rushing to get appointments to terminate their pregnancies. Evelyn was one of them.

When it was her turn, she reclined on the exam table and crossed her fingers, hoping she wasn’t too far along.

“You’re six weeks and four days pregnant,” she recalls the doctors saying.

“So it’s too late?” she asked.

Yes, she was told.

The clinic’s staff advised her to go to Oklahoma before that state adopted an abortion ban, too.

Evelyn texted Hernandez, who was waiting outside: “It’s not good.” Back in the car, she started to weep. “I have to go to Oklahoma,” Hernandez remembers her saying.

It was time to tell her parents, Hernandez told her. Evelyn refused.

Her appointment at Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Services wasn’t until mid-April — nearly four weeks later. She didn’t want to make the six-hour journey alone, so she called her birth mother, Tamela, who lived near the Oklahoma border.

Her birth mother was a teenager when she became pregnant with Evelyn. With the encouragement of her adoptive mom, Evelyn had found her on Facebook in 2016. They stayed in touch. Evelyn hoped she would be able to understand her predicament.

Tamela says she was surprised by Evelyn’s call but immediately understood her fear. “You don’t think it’s going to happen to you, that you’re going to get pregnant so young. And it’s scary. It’s very scary because it happened to me,” Tamela remembers thinking.

During the hours-long car ride to Oklahoma, Evelyn says they sat mostly silent while listening to music. Evelyn thanked her birth mother for accompanying her and keeping the secret from her adoptive parents. She remembers Tamela telling her that she was making a good decision and that ending the pregnancy would be best for her future.

They checked into a DoubleTree hotel, and Evelyn spotted the clinic through the window.

Early the next morning Tamela watched as Evelyn maneuvered past yelling antiabortion protesters and entered the clinic. At the time, the Tulsa clinic’s caseload had tripled to 500 cases per month, says Andrea Gallegos, the executive administrator at the Texas and Oklahoma clinics Evelyn went to. Most of the patients were from Texas.

The clinic’s doctor estimated that she was nine, possibly 10 weeks along and handed her a prescription for mifepristone, Evelyn says. She should dissolve the pills under her tongue to start a medication abortion, according to the prescription she received from the clinic. She was told to take the remaining four pills, misoprostol, “orally” at home within 48 hours.

Back in the car, Tamela says Evelyn showed her the paperwork from the clinic and appeared relieved and happy. “They made me feel welcomed and were really supportive in there,” Evelyn told her birth mother.

She didn’t take the second dose until she returned to her home in San Antonio, nearly two days later. She wanted to be at home where she would have more privacy, Evelyn says. Her stomach had started to cramp. Then she saw the blood clots in the toilet. She bled for hours and had spotting for a couple of weeks.

Confident it had worked, she says she didn’t bother to make the follow-up doctor’s appointment the clinic had strongly recommended.

May and June passed. Evelyn started working as a fulfillment associate at Macy’s. But she still hadn’t gotten her menstrual cycle. She took another pregnancy test and was stunned when it came back positive.

A family friend, Yvette, a registered nurse, says she arranged for Evelyn to get bloodwork done at a hospital. At the hospital, a midwife, Monica, also measured Evelyn’s uterus and conducted an ultrasound. Both women spoke on the condition that their last names be withheld because they were not authorized to speak by their employer.

Evelyn fainted when she saw that there was a heartbeat, and was in and out of consciousness for about five minutes, the midwife recalled in an interview. She was obviously in denial, Monica said. Perhaps it’s time to consider adoption, the midwife told her.

“No, no, no, I can’t go through with the pregnancy,” Evelyn responded.

Evelyn says she didn’t know the pills sometimes didn’t work. It is a rare occurrence, but she later learned that 3 percent of medication abortions fail when gestation reaches 70 days, or 10 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The odds of failure increase if the patient waits longer than prescribed to take the second dose of the medication, several medical experts said.

The Oklahoma clinic has since closed, and Gallegos said she doesn’t have access to Evelyn’s medical records. Failure is uncommon, but the clinic advises all patients to make follow-up appointments and receive an ultrasound, she said. “Have we had patients who have failed pills? Yes. Is it the norm? No,” Gallegos told The Post. “We would try to schedule every patient to come back for a follow-up and ultrasound to make sure that everything was completed. Sometimes patients made it to those appointments, sometimes they didn’t.”

Desperate, Evelyn found a website, Aid Access, that shipped abortion medication across the country. After speaking with a doctor by phone and paying $150, she waited for pills that were being mailed from India.

Evelyn had told the doctor she wasn’t sure the date of her last period. At the time, Aid Access prescribed medication abortion pills for patients who were up to 10 weeks pregnant, taking into account the two-week shipping time. “Aid Access trusts women to tell the truth about their situation,” Rebecca Gomperts, the company’s director, told The Post in a statement.

It may already have been too late for the medication to be effective, Evelyn says she told herself. But she was convinced that she didn’t have any other choice.

When the pills arrived, she ripped open the package and read the instructions over and over. She said she wanted to do it right this time.

For a couple of hours she had cramps but no bleeding. She emailed the company. They advised her to take the additional pills they sent, according to the email. Still, Evelyn says, nothing happened.

She was nervous, she wrote the company in another email reviewed by The Post. “I’ve been through this before and started bleeding within two hours,” she told them of her previous experience with a medication abortion.

In the email exchange, the company offered to send more medication to a pharmacy near Evelyn, but she remembered the warning of Yvette, the registered nurse: At this stage, nearly five months into her pregnancy, an abortion was becoming risky to her health. She refused the offer of more medication.

Evelyn spent August and September in an emotional haze, pretending that life was normal around the house she shared with her parents but researching states that offered abortions later in pregnancy. She was still hanging out with friends, most of whom were oblivious to her pregnancy. During family dinners, she and her parents would chat about the latest movies, and they would stress the importance of her returning to school.

She found a clinic in Albuquerque that offered second-trimester abortions. She was past the halfway point in her pregnancy and approaching the third trimester, but she still had time, Evelyn told herself.

The clinic staff warned about the health risks of having a surgical abortion so late in her pregnancy but helped connect her to two abortion organizations that covered the cost of her plane ticket, hotel, food and the $12,000 procedure.

“There are no circumstances surrounding your pregnancy that will make you more or less deserving of assistance,” the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice wrote Evelyn in an email confirming she was approved for assistance. The organization doesn’t keep abortion seekers’ information, said Janeth Orozco, spokeswoman for the nonprofit group. Evelyn’s travel documents to New Mexico list the coalition as the payee.

At the beginning of October 2022, Evelyn told her parents she was going to visit a friend across town but instead boarded a plane to Albuquerque. She called the midwife who had conducted her ultrasound while waiting to take off. Evelyn needed her bloodwork and lab results. She sounded desperate, the midwife says.

Behind the reporting

The next morning, Evelyn found herself staring up at fluorescent light panels. A nurse moved the curved ultrasound wand across her belly and tickled the long dark line that had emerged in the center of her stomach as the baby grew.

“I’m so sorry,” Evelyn remembers the nurse telling her, looking at the screen. “You are too far along, 32 weeks pregnant,” she said, pausing before adding, “We can’t help you.” The clinic’s doctors aren’t trained to perform abortions after 24 weeks, according to Southwestern Women’s Options.

Evelyn burst into tears.

Suddenly out of options for ending the pregnancy, Evelyn began to consider a future that had once seemed impossible. She would be giving birth.

Her parents were already upset she had been kicked out of school. The weight of disappointing them further and having them find out she had unprotected sex was something she had not wanted to face.

She hadn’t seriously considered adoption until now, despite being adopted herself. But now that seemed to be the only option.

Evelyn says she knew adoption could be positive. Her parents had given her an ideal childhood. There were trips to Argentina and France. She played soccer and basketball before falling in love with volleyball.

She was grateful for her family but sometimes had questions. What was her birth mother like? Did she have any biological siblings?

When she returned home to San Antonio, she called the Gladney Center for Adoption, in Fort Worth, the agency her parents had used.

After concealing her growing belly from her parents for months, it was time to stop lying. She was starting to show.

One day, before heading to the movies for a family outing, she asked her mother to join her in her bedroom. By the time she had the courage to tell her mother, Evelyn was more than seven months pregnant. The words spilled out through tears — the abortion attempt, her fear.

Her mom, she learned, had been suspicious of the big robe she had been wearing around the house. But Evelyn was still too terrified to tell her father about her pregnancy. So her mother did.

His head dropped in disbelief, Evelyn’s mom recalled. “Go talk to her. She needs you,” she told him.

Her dad gave Evelyn a long hug in the kitchen. He was shocked, disappointed and hurt. She should have come to them sooner for help, he told her.

Her parents assured her they would support any decision she made, including placing the baby up for adoption.

Two weeks later, on Nov. 10, her mom began timing Evelyn’s contractions. Evelyn had initially mistaken the throbbing for gallbladder pain. She quickly packed a hospital bag. Six hours later, she gave birth.

Two hours east, in Houston, Carolyn Whiteman, a human resources executive for a chemical company, had been struggling with becoming a mother for years.

In 2020, she had tested positive for BRCA2, a hereditary gene that puts her at increased risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. Her OB/GYN told her she would need to have her ovaries and uterus removed in her mid-40s.

She had always seen herself as a career-oriented Black woman who should have been married with kids in her mid-30s.

Now she was out of time and couldn’t wait any longer if she wanted to be a mom.

At 41, Whiteman underwent two cycles of egg freezing, in 2021. She froze 24 eggs and felt “pretty lucky.”

For three months, she says she meticulously searched cryobank websites daily for at least an hour. She joined Facebook groups for women looking for donors. There, she read posts from other Black women expressing the same struggle: There were hardly any Black sperm donors .

[ America has a Black sperm donor shortage. Black women are paying the price. ]

A few months after Whiteman ended her sperm donor search, her younger sister, Anika, sent her an Essence magazine article about a single woman who had adopted a baby at 49 after she too froze her eggs. Whiteman began researching private open domestic adoption , an increasingly common choice for keeping birth parents involved in the child’s life.

Whiteman met the income requirements and had good references. She confidently called two adoption agencies in early 2022 but was rejected because she wasn’t married.

She was devastated but contacted three other adoption agencies. They couldn’t help her either. They already had long waitlists and weren’t accepting applications from new prospective parents, they told her. Another door is closed, Whiteman remembers thinking.

Then a co-worker referred her to another agency, Gladney, which accepted her application. There was a need for more Black adoptive parents and it would make her an attractive applicant to many birth parents, she was told. It was expensive — $50,000 — and took months as she went through various interviews and trainings. But she finally had hope.

Her profile went live on the agency’s website in October 2022. “I will ensure you always hold an honored place in your child’s life,” Whiteman wrote in her letter to prospective parents. She prepared for a lengthy wait that she was told could last two years.

Evelyn had not had any prenatal care and didn’t know the gender of her baby until she delivered. But the baby, a girl, was healthy.

It felt like whiplash. She had tried for months not to have the child she was silently cradling. And she says she quickly discovered she was in love.

She took selfie videos, with playful social media filters, holding her daughter. Her photo album quickly filled with videos of Evelyn bottle-feeding, learning to swaddle and admiring the baby’s fussy sounds.

She named her Kaya, the same name Evelyn had been given at birth — before she was adopted.

She was becoming attached but knew the decision she wanted to make.

The next day, Evelyn chose five prospective families to interview. But after reading Whiteman’s profile four or five times, she gravitated toward the woman’s warmth. Evelyn admired all of the pictures of Whiteman’s family and friends and how she talked about traveling, working out and spoiling her goddaughters. To Evelyn, she seemed like someone who was “ready to give a child everything.”

When they met over Zoom, the women say they talked of spirituality, faith and the importance of family time.

Whiteman mentioned that she was on the local board of Girls Inc., a nonprofit that encourages young girls to become leaders. Evelyn smiled. “I was part of Girls Inc. when I was younger,” she told Whiteman.

Eight hours later, Whiteman received a call from the adoption agency.

She was about to become a mom.

She hung up, went online and signed up for an infant CPR class scheduled for 8 a.m. the next day.

The next 10 days were chaotic.

Whiteman hired a nanny and started shopping. She tested strollers and bought a formula maker.

Evelyn and her mom picked out a fluffy, light-pink dress from a children’s store for the baby to wear on adoption day. They went to a craft store and bought soft fabric with rainbows on it. Evelyn knit the fabric into a baby blanket.

Adoption on the rise

The night before Evelyn was to turn her baby over, on Nov. 29, 2022, the women traveled to Fort Worth and met in person for the first time over a chicken quesadilla dinner. Whiteman had grown nervous that Evelyn would change her mind but learned she had already signed the relinquishment papers.

The soon-to-be mom told Evelyn she had always loved the name Olivia.

“In honor of you, I want to keep the name that you had for her. So I will name her Olivia Kaya-Simone,” Whiteman told her.

Evelyn hadn’t taken Olivia home when she left the hospital, worried it would be too hard to parent her while the adoption was finalized.

In the moments before officially handing Olivia over to Whiteman, Evelyn sat alone with Olivia in a Gladney office and whispered: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” She kissed Olivia’s forehead and promised she would have a great life with Whiteman.

Eventually, when she was ready, Evelyn walked into a room as her parents followed her. Nearly all of Whiteman’s family was there recording the moment and taking pictures. Face red with tears, Evelyn handed her child to her new mom. The two women sat and held hands for two hours.

Their case workers allowed them some time alone. Before they left, Evelyn says she wanted to explain to Whiteman how she had become pregnant and tell her about her abortion attempts.

“I really hope you won’t judge me,” she told her.

In the weeks after the adoption, Evelyn says she barely left home. She cried every day and slept with Olivia’s hospital clothes next to her for comfort. Her mother held her and said it would be okay.

She was sad but confident about her decisions, including her failed abortion attempts. A therapist helped her make peace with the guilt.

Olivia was in a good place, and Evelyn would get to watch her grow up, her therapist assured her.

As she grappled with her feelings, she watched the abortion landscape that had tripped up her decision to end her pregnancy continue to tighten. Twenty states had enacted laws limiting abortion access. The clinic in San Antonio she initially went to for an abortion closed, and the Oklahoma clinic that gave her medication abortion pills relocated to Illinois.

Other women should have the same choices she had, Evelyn remembers thinking, including an abortion.

Slowly, Evelyn’s fog began to lift. In January 2023, her academic dismissal period ended, and she enrolled in classes at a community college. To return, she was required to submit a letter to the dean and wrote about her unplanned pregnancy and how much restarting her education meant to her.

She attended every lecture, went to tutoring and turned in her assignments on time. She passed all of her classes and, for the first time, earned straight A’s.

“I’m going to use everything I went through to motivate me,” Evelyn remembers telling her mom. “I want Olivia to grow up and be proud of me.”

In the summer, she applied to a four-year historically Black college near Houston. “So pleased to hear you are back on track to continue your higher education,” the acceptance letter said.

Eleven months after giving birth, Evelyn poured buttermilk pancake mix onto a hot pan, a late breakfast for herself and her new roommate before class. She had moved into an off-campus apartment, her first time living away from her parents, and was basking in life as a college student.

She goes to the gym four days per week, attends a midweek Bible study meeting on campus and is looking for a criminal justice internship. She goes out with her friends on the weekends and hopes to try out for the club volleyball team next year.

But she and her roommate were still getting to know each other, and Evelyn hadn’t told her about her pregnancy yet.

Instead, her roommate watched as Evelyn giggled in excitement about a birthday party planned for a new friend on campus the next night. She reviewed the contents of her overstuffed closet, looking for an outfit and pulling out different crop top options.

“I’m trying to shop my closet. I don’t want to spend money on a new outfit,” Evelyn told her.

But the evidence of Olivia is everywhere. Evelyn sleeps with a gray 6-pound, 11-ounce teddy bear — Olivia’s birth weight — that her Gladney caseworker gave her after she relinquished custody.

In the morning, she fluffs her hair and swipes through videos of Olivia on her phone.

She watches clips of the 1-year-old sitting in a highchair and stuffing cereal into her mouth. In another, Olivia is having her ears pierced.

Receiving Whiteman’s photos and videos of Olivia over the months had comforted Evelyn, but seeing her for the first time in a year, holding her, would be different.

She had longed for this planned reunion for months — circling the date in her spiral planner, buying a small gift.

Whiteman had bought matching mommy-and-daughter multi-print dresses for herself and Olivia. She asked Evelyn to wear a bright-orange top so that they would all coordinate.

On a sunny fall afternoon, Evelyn drove 45 minutes to the townhouse where Whiteman had said they would reunite. Her parents traveled two hours to join her. Evelyn again laid eyes on the baby she had given birth to.

In the kitchen, Whiteman gave her updates about Olivia, telling her about the baby’s love of Elmo, Ms. Rachel videos on YouTube and the more than 90 bows she had collected to coordinate with her outfits. “Bows are the new barrettes,” Whiteman joked.

While sitting next to Whiteman on the couch, Evelyn rolled up the left pant leg of her skinny jeans and showed her a small tattoo on her ankle — a heart inside a triangle.

“The three points represent the birth mother, the adoptive mother and baby,” Evelyn said. “The heart represents the love they all share.”

It was a tattoo she had gotten years earlier to represent her own adoption, but it had taken on new meaning.

Whiteman watched as Evelyn studied Olivia’s every feature, took Snapchat pictures, and bounced her up and down in a corner of the living room.

“The more people who love Olivia, the better,” Whiteman said as she watched the two play.

As the sun began to set, Evelyn and her parents prepared to leave. She caressed Olivia’s soft curls and gently kissed her on the forehead.

She left a children’s book written by Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade on the dining room table. On the inside cover, she wrote: “Olivia, With this book, I hope you will grow to love reading. I love you forever! — Evelyn.”

Leaving the reunion, Evelyn felt a flush of calm. Olivia was happy.

On the car ride home, she received a text from Whiteman. It contained details about a garden brunch. Evelyn and her parents were invited to Olivia’s first birthday party the next month, where they would play Olivia Trivia.

There was no doubt, Evelyn knew. She would be there.

About this story

Story editing by Renae Merle . Photo editing by Natalia Jiménez . Design by Elena Lacey. Design editing by Junne Alcantara . Copy editing by Ryan Weber and Phil Lueck. Video editing by Drea Cornejo . Senior video producing by Jayne Orenstein and Tom LeGro . Videography by Reshma Kirpalani and Amber Ferguson . Audio production by Charla Freeland . Project editing by Jay Wang and Ana Carano.