When your children are all grown up, it’s with a bit of difficulty to get everybody together in one place. Someone has to work, someone has to party, someone has to go on an errand, and so on, and so forth.

While we do have a chat group, it’s not exactly the best of ways to communicate. The most I can get from the boys are one-word replies, at best two, or GIFs and emojis. It was quite fortunate then that my daughter thought to whisk us all off to a family retreat a year and half ago.

Attended by dozens of families from my daughter’s church, the retreat was refreshing in a couple of respects.

Because it was held in the foothills of Mount Makiling, there was hardly any signal. You’d have to walk quite a bit just to send a message through your phone. This meant that, yes, we were forced to talk to each other! Mwahahaha! Because our gadgets have been rendered useless, we chatted during mealtimes, while walking to and from the workshop venues and before we went to sleep.

There were plenty of other opportunities to dive deep into our family dynamics during structured sessions. Guided by prompt questions, we were able to explore old issues and recurring concerns.

I’ve got to tell you that not all of the sessions were easy. It’s hard to relive painful memories and more difficult still to be reminded of all the times you messed up. But then again, putting rest to an issue which has consistently nagged at you is so much sweeter.

GRATEFUL for the time. The author shares a lighthearted moment with her kids and grandchild during the family’s retreat a year and a half ago. But our discovery of one another not only came from heart-wrenching discussions, it also came by way of physical and mental challenges which we had to work on together as a family.

We had to throw an egg from the second floor without breaking it, fill a tube full of holes with water, and simultaneously pass these sticks from one person to another without dropping them, among others.

The exercises were absolutely rejuvenating, I tell you. I found out how well we worked together as a family. I was particularly proud when the facilitators told us that we were the only family who didn’t argue with each other when accomplishing one particularly difficult task, and may I just say that we completed it in record time. And wow, the kids were quite competitive, my granddaughter most specially. It was fun to see them in “combat” mode.

While we didn’t come out first, we actually didn’t place at all, I was quite proud of how we worked the course as a family.

One of the things which we brought home with us is the desire to consciously stay in touch with one another. This we have done by asking this simple question when we’re all together during mealtimes: What are you grateful for?

It sounds simple, but that one question can bring on a world of discoveries. With that one question, I get a peek into what my children are concerned about, what they hold dear and what they cherish.

With that one question too, I get to encourage them to be thankful for all the fascinating details of their lives, whether big or small — and that, to me, is the most important.