Emergency family reunions.

Recently, some of my coworkers have had family members pass away. One of my coworkers I talk to about making videos with actually made a video for his father's memorial. It was beautiful. There were sepia-toned Leave It to Beaver-style shots from childhood, black-and-white photos covering his years in the air force (?) to his marriage, colored photos of life after the military with children, and finally beautiful close-ups of him in old age when he became a bit more sickly. I'd say the man lived a fascinatingly full life. It was like the history of photography. The ending was a bit more grim but something that stuck out at me was the photos of the family reunions. It seemed like every year the whole family gathered for a camping trip, and it was a rather size-able family. The father wore a sweatshirt with a picture of the clan covered in messages and signatures, like what you do at camp when you're a kid. (sidenote: I was devastated when my grandma saw my chinese camp shirt and washed 3/4 of my signatures away because the shirt looked dirty - there was writing all over it. Always use sharpie!) Even at 80 he was running around the baseball diamond in the annual softball game.

Family reunions are so great!
I'm not talking about holidays. I mean a specific date you when set work and everything else aside and everyone meets in one place with the goal to enjoy each others company. You get to see people and remember oh yes, I am related to you. It's a nice break from normal life to just be with family and reflect on roots and hear old stories about your parents. Now that my family is spread out all over the world, it seems like the only time everyone will actually stop their lives to gather together is for a funeral. I was rather close to my grandparents. My grandparents made an effort to be a part of every grandchild's life, especially to help out when the kids were young. But for other people in other families, it seems a lot of people don't know their relatives well. I am terrible at keeping in touch.

My point,
when there is a death in the family and you report it to work. Everyone has the general understanding, do not bother this person in their time of grief. Work practically ushers you to go be with your family. Because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do. Suddenly, family is terribly important. But what if you barely knew the person who passed? Shouldn't it be more relevant to usher workers to spend time with their family, to actually get to know their family prior to death so that you can truly appreciate the person's life and genuinely mourn their passing?

Work should encourage family reunions. 
Oh, you are going off to be with your family? Your relatives are flying in from Alaska, South Africa and Denmark? Go have a great time bonding! Don't worry about telecommuting and spending your whole time working at the computer. We won't ask a thing from you. We know you are with your family.

What would a world like that be?
There was a story on NPR about the 85th reunion of a black family.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129005346
Someone commented family reunions may be more of a tradition in black families originating from Reconstruction. Family members that had been separated during times of slavery made an effort to travel all over the US to be reunited.