Reflections :: Family Reunion Week

It was my 78th family reunion this past weekend.

My father’s dad, one of eleven children, and my Grammy the saint, would pack my dad and his six brothers and sisters up and haul them into the mountains in Pennsylvania to be with their aunts and uncles.  I’ve never been there, but grew up on fed stories of Lonely Acres much as I did on food.  The dirty swimming hole, the cabin for all the kids, games that included a supposed rolling pin toss between couples, that left the men running towards the pond and the women falling over one another with a body laughter so specific only women know it’s true.

When I was a girl reunion week was the axis of my summer.  Reunion had moved by then to a park with big green shade trees and see-saws and a tall pavilion, miles from the beach in Maryland where we spent much of June and July.  It meant the cottage we shared with my grandparents and aunt Mary and uncle Tim would also be full with all the other happy, soft bodies of the people I most loved.  Fold-out couches and blow-up mattresses with all dad’s other sisters and brothers, for a knee-high babe what I remember was a palace of pillows to play with my dolls.  I was the first born grandkid and this was before the rest of the grandkids came.  Over the years as our family increased, dad’s brothers and sisters grew families of their own, made lives for themselves, began to rent beach houses for the week so that bit by bit the air mattresses and cots, fold out beds and sleeping bags got packed away. That meant reunion changed to races and egg tosses, playing on the playground til dirt covered, posing for pics with second and third cousins I saw once a year when they arrived to the park from “out of town”.  It meant anticipating cook-outs at Uncle Paul’s and bike rides with Aunt Sue.  Each event at someone’s house was its own special bonus of reunion week.

I was in middle school when I remember the conversation, at the table in our cottage, between the adults.  The loud laughter or nighttime hush around the kitchen table always seemed the arena of the adults. Conversations there always felt so important, the earliest memories of childhood include my Pop, dad’s dad.  A colonel in the Army, he had a posture small but full of command, he sat at the top of the table and could silence dinner with a glance.  One particular reunion day aunt Linda and uncle Kevin were leading the exchange.  Their daughter Esther, their oldest, was in diapers.  Aunt Linda, a kindergarten teacher, was sharing new ideas about games for all the kids.  Shaving cream games, where they got to lather and “shape” their dad’s facial hair with popsicle sticks.  Water balloon tosses.  Whole enacted plays of whatever Disney Movie was big.  My uncle Tim told me then, the whole thing about the family reunion.  Make sure the kids have fun.  That’s the way to ensure they pass it on.

Reunion “week” has fallen away.  It is only Friday through Monday now, all us kids have grown up and most are starting their own families and can’t afford the trip or the whole week.  There’s no way to cram all fifty of us in one small cottage!  But reunion day persists. Sunday, after the last bocce game between my uncles and their cousins ended and dusk was in the trees, there was just a few of us left.  We were around a table. The register, a sign in book Grammy started in 1961 was opened before me.  The couple of us left toasted my uncle Tim’s wife, aunt Mary, who died in August of last year, the first of dad’s siblings or in-laws to pass.  My eyes were swelled, as they’ve been all week, with a gratitude I didn’t know how to speak. With the knowledge of meaning, of having something this sacred to mark the passings, the endings and starts, of life.  Last night, aunt Linda and uncle Kevin became grandparents for the first time.   The thought of the importance of this tradition, and the legacy of passing it on, is so strong for me it leaves me without speech.

Make sure the kids know love and how to love, give them the regularity of stories and sitting around the kitchen table,  the same laps to rest on and arms to hug.  Excite them over going to the same place with the same people, making steadiness of life amidst all its great change.  Make sure the kids know how much family can be fun.

What are some of your favorite family memories?

Photo courtesy of Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/createstudio/6075244510/sizes/z/in/photolist-afRdx1-8fx8fk-cxP7qd-9Vcezd-ajaEGL-8fwGHv-dSrhqK-dSwSJb-d9Xad1-cxNPew-8niiq3-cArLRy-8mHVr7-afbpSV-cs6y4A-7QRPe4-7QV7pf-cMPheY-cxNL4w-cYryYS-8gt9Gh-8gtgSW-8gpS4P-8gttzu-cxNS2j-a5gYpT-8nfc9V-cxNPQs-cxP7b5-cxNKyo-dXCTzr-cxPbyU-am6TaU-cRpxpq-7QRKqX-7MJ15v-9tpWRK-a8Ug4K-bxb7v4-bxb92H-8gtkF1-8gtkU7-8gpRHg-8gpTuP-8gpT42-8gt651-8gq3tZ-8gtouy-8gtaLS-8gpW9M-8gqdgX/