Family Spirit

Sunday, August 24, 1997

Tonight I drove up to the North End for dinner with relatives.

In my mother's family were five daughters, my mother being the oldest. My mother married my father and they lived in the Washington D.C. area. One of the other daughters married a man who worked for "the government" (don't ask which branch) and they moved to DC in the early sixties. They had five children, including a set of girl twins just a little older than me.

Although we saw a lot of all the relatives on my mother's side, this was the family we were closest to, of course. We went to their house all the time, and they came to ours. I remember my mom laying down on their family room couch and napping when we'd spend the day over there. She could really relax, because her sister was "on duty" and taking care of all of us.

My aunt died of cancer while I was at college. Not too long after, my uncle retired from "the government" and decided to move to the Pacific Northwest, along with his youngest son who was still in school. Their other children were working or in school. One of the twins went to the same college as I did, although I didn't see much of her there. I think this suited us both, since we were in "striking out on our own" mode, not "keeping family connections" mode, at that time.

One of the cousins in this family is a very trustworthy, steady guy. He pointed me to a place to live in the early eighties, when I was working at a restaurant in Northern Virginia. There was a street of single family houses that had been bought by a developer, right by Tysons Corner. But the project fell through or changed, so instead of being torn down, the houses were rented at very reasonable rates. He shared a very sweet deal with me. We were next-door neighbors for several years.

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So now two of the cousins are living in the Seattle area, along with my uncle and his present wife. Since the youngest cousin and his wife, and one of the twins and her husband and kids, were all visiting at the same time, we wanted to have a get-togther.

Wow, what a dinner! Beef that had been marinating since Friday evening, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, salad, fresh fruit, and three kinds of pie. This included a family tradition pie (their family, but I loved it too) called Brandy Blackbottom pie: gingersnap crumb crust, a layer of chocolate, a brandied custard filling, whipped cream topping with shaved chocolate curls.

It was fun catching up and meeting some of the significant others for the first time. Too bad one of the group was rabidly anti-Microsoft! But since I am not a confrontational sort, I just let the subject drop instead of telling him he was full of it. When people have these non-rational beliefs, it doesn't help to try to disprove what they are saying point by point.

I believe in the value of these long-term connections. It's great to know people who have known you a long time, even if you might not have a lot in common today; people who remember the details of your shared past.