The “Glue”
I just returned back to town from a wonderful family reunion. I am lucky enough to have a pretty big extended family. My mom was one of 11 kids (my dad one of 10), so as a result, I have quite a few first cousins–I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure it’s near 50. I have to say that I consider myself a very lucky person to be part of such a large crew. I was also fortunate enough to have a family member that I consider the “glue” in our family.
My Aunt Norma, and her deceased husband Ray, were hugely instrumental in keeping our extended family glued together and with such deeply engrained childhood memories. My mother’s immediate family had always done lots of things together. I can still remember going to my nana’s (mom’s mom) for holidays and she’d have the whole crew in her row home for dinner. Looking back, she had to have prepared a huge amount of food to feed all those people. As they grew, they continued to foster relationships among their spouses and onto their children as the kid network continued to grow.
One of the very cool things about having such a large extended family is having a built in friend network for life. In the year I was born alone, there are 3 other cousins my age. Because our family was always big about celebrating together, that made for lots of family gatherings. Christenings, first communions, graduations, holidays and eventually weddings for 11 kids and their kids adds up to a gazillion meetings together. I have had many amazing friendships with these cousins, and I am not alone, as my siblings also have the same experiences. Of course like any friendships some of them are casual, some of them were very close but served their purpose and you both moved on, and some just grew deeper over the years.
As I had mentioned earlier, my Aunt Norma in particular played a huge part of orchestrating this grand network of close family members. Out of the generosity of her heart, she used to allow the entire extended family to come and picnic at her home every, yes that’s right, EVERY Sunday during the warm summer months. Each family brought their own eats and grills, but my Aunt graciously allowed us to hang out there for years on end. It was especially wonderful because she had an in ground pool at her home. It was also situated on shared property that allowed access down a dirt hill to backs of their homes. This public area had quite an expanse of woods behind it as well near a creek bed, and also a neat little baseball diamond there to further enhance our adventures and family bonding.
Together we shared so many of our own personal triumphs and defeats. As I said, it wasn’t always perfect. There were the usual fights and disagreements that cause animosity here and there, but the one thing about family, they never really go away–they are always a part of who you are. We delighted in sharing the joys of reading borrowing from my Aunt’s Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys collection. We learned to swim. We played baseball together–some better than others–and laid the ground roots for our social lives realizing that you all needed to play together and work out issues that came up on the fly, or no one would be able to play. We worked on our teamwork efforts by trying our best to build forts to hide away in around the wooded area. I can even remember some of the boys managing to start a fire–it started out benign, just using a magnifying glass to burn some grass, then it spiraled out of control. Believe it or not, the boys banded together and had a group pee to stifle it, thank god. A little gross, but how’s that for ingenuity and thinking on your feet to prevent a disaster!
I am certain each and every one of my cousins has their own little cache of memories that they will never forget. We used to all walk down the road together to see an amazing fireworks celebration on the fourth of July. Here I worked up the courage to dive off the diving board and eventually flips as well. Dear Aunt Norma had a poodle named Peppy, that we’d take for strolls through the neighborhood. This also worked out to be your very own vacation planner as well, as we’d frequently swap kids and houses for weeks at a time, getting to know each other even more closely. I can still remember how proud I was playing catch with my dad and doing so well, when he lobbed a ball high in the air for me to catch–“I got it, I got it!”–when thwump, I very decidedly DID NOT get it! I remember it hurt, but not being particularly traumatized until my cousin John said, Oh my god look at all the blood!! I looked down and started bawling my eyes out. I had not one, but two mean shiners for quite a while after that day in history. When the weather was iffy or chilly we had to come up with other ways to amuse ourselves like playing yatzee or a word game called spit in the ocean to while away the hours.
These wonderful times were not just shared by our cousins but with each of my aunts and uncles as well. The women tended to hang out in the cool confines of the screened in patio, while the men gathered together in their shed next to the pool spending the day watching sporting events, playing cards, friendly games of horseshoes and working their way through the keg-er-ator each week. I know my father, being one of the in-laws, considered himself lucky to be part of such a warm and welcoming family.
Eventually my aunt relocated to another home and those easy carefree times started to fade into the past as we grew and got older. My aunt still generously offered her new lakefront home for all to share, but it was a little bit further, and as I said, the kids were starting to get involved in their own lives, so there were fewer and fewer folks over the years to share in these wonderful gatherings.
As if offering two homes was not enough, they also purchased a second home in Hilton Head and again opened their lovely get away locale for all to relax and enjoy. This was particularly dear to me, as I had gone to school for hotel and restaurant management, and after vacationing there several times, thought it’d be a great place to move–so I did. I had many wonderful memories living there. One of the things that was especially nice was the ability to see my extended family so often. Even though I was living 12 odd hours away, so many folks took advantage of checking out this cozy vacation villa of my aunt’s, I think I actually saw family more when I lived there than when I lived in the same area.
So I counted myself lucky as I partook in a wonderful gathering of all of my aunts, uncles and cousins this weekend. I know this extended crew would give the shirts off their backs–and have many times over the years–to help out one of our family members when in need. Even though the gatherings have not always been happy ones, as many of our family has passed on, I look forward to saying hello to all and polishing those cherished memories from a lifetime of gatherings. Even though our families are growing and creating their own network of close knit cousins, it laid the groundwork to keep family a wonderful priority in each of our lives today.
Wow! I just wrote a long reply and I don’t know where it went. I’ll type it again another day!