Kinkeeping
I hosted a work birthday party yesterday with one other co-worker. We have around 200 people at our facility. We knew that they wouldn’t all come because it’s cotton planting season and that’s part of our business. I didn’t eat; I didn’t sit. I hosted.
I met people I didn’t know already and asked them lots of questions. And when I got home later, I thought, I have officially become my mom and grandma.
Last week, my uncle James called to thank me for planning the family reunion this summer. We haven’t had a reunion of any kind with all the family present since 2018. This is for a group of five siblings, their parents, and their children who met every.single.holiday like clockwork.
Easter? Meal around 1:00 at Grandma’s or Mom’s then egg hunt following. Fourth of July? Lunch/dinner at Grandma’s or Mom’s and evening fireworks on the farm with sparklers for the kids. Thanksgiving? Lunch around 1:00 at Grandma’s or Mom’s followed by board games. Christmas? Lunch around 1:00 at Grandma’s or Mom’s followed by opening presents from drawing names and then board games. Consistency. It’s what we had.
Granted, four of the five siblings at that time lived on the family farm where my grandparents lived. We could walk to Grandma’s house anytime, but holidays were set days for everyone to be there. There were birthdays in between that usually had a good turnout as well.
If you married, your new spouse got on board and showed up at those times. If they asked for flexibility, you gave them a look and said, This is when we meet. We aren’t changing for one person. Sometimes, individual families would leave after the meal or the games or the presents to go to the other in-laws; sometimes, the in-laws would also be invited to join the family festivities. But what never, ever changed was the festivities.
Until Mom got Alzheimer’s.
Then there was a shift – my aunt Linda and cousin Lisa hosted celebrations at their house. The families were getting bigger. We grandkids were getting married and having our own kids. We went from around 20 in 1991 when my youngest cousin Rebekah was born to around 35 by 2007 when my Mom first started showing signs of early onset Alzheimer’s (she was 57). Some of the family had moved away and didn’t come for every holiday; some of us (mainly me) tried to incorporate celebrations with both sides of the family and skipped some holidays.
And then Grandma died. Suddenly. In 2010. And everything changed.
Mom’s Alzheimer’s was bad enough that Dad couldn’t take care of her by himself even with caregivers hired to help throughout the day. He moved her into an assisted living facility.
I’m not even sure now if at that point, the decline of the family get-together was gradual or if it was abrupt. Grandma and Mom were the planners – they always had been. They organized, got people together, and they hosted.
At this point, the older of us cousins had kids in elementary and junior high, and we were busy. The younger of the cousins had just started having babies. Lisa, my cousin with 5 kids, started adopting more. We were definitely growing. And even though my Grandpa liked to see everyone, he was aging and pretty deaf. You get that many kids together and the hearing aids become more annoying than helpful.
So we kind of just stopped with the great big celebrations.
In 2015, we got together for Grandpa’s 97th birthday, and some of us went to cousins’ weddings and saw each other. And in 2018, my uncles Mike and James and my cousin Chris decided to put a reunion together out at the family farm.
By then, my parents had both died – Mom with Alzheimer’s and Dad with brain cancer – and so had Grandpa. I don’t know how many showed up that day, but by then, even with the loss of family members, our additions had brought us up to at least 23 great-grandchildren plus the new spouses. And I know not everyone made it to that reunion. Honestly, I’m not sure if ALL of us have ever been together since before Grandma died. Not everyone could make it to the funerals.
(This is where my mom’s humor wants to come out and say that my mom and grandma would be rolling over in their graves that we stopped seeing each other – except my mom would really be more like floating around in my dad’s grave, where her ashes are.)
My mom’s oldest brother is in his late 70’s, her sister in her early 70’s and the younger brothers are in their 60’s, the youngest is the age my mom was when she died. So when my aunt contacted my brother and me and her siblings and asked if anyone would be interested in a family reunion this summer, everyone wanted to do it. We miss each other. Or maybe we miss the nostalgia. But I’d like to say it’s more that we miss that familial bond.
A couple weeks went by, and no one had made any decisions on where or when, so since my mom died and made me boss (I know, I know), I stepped up and volunteered to get the ball rolling.
Trying to find a summer weekend venue (yes, venue, because the great-grands have been getting married and having babies the last few years, and now we are up to almost 75 people) hasn’t been super easy. And we aren’t all on the farm anymore. We are kind of spread out. So, after checking at least 30 places, I settled on one, somewhere in between those of us farthest apart and with lots of activities for the kids and room to play and run.
And now one cousin is preparing games and another is working on getting a catering quote, and my uncle James called also to ask about which family pictures I wanted him to bring. All of them, I told him. While we were on the phone, he told me a story about my mom and one of the pictures he found. And that, THAT, is what I want. I want the stories, the ones that my mom and my grandma told me and the ones that they didn’t. Because I’m terrified that they are all going to be erased if someone doesn’t write them down soon.
So I’m making plans for the reunion, for sharing stories and playing games and showing our children and grandchildren what it was like before. And I will try to remember to sit and soak it all in, not taking for granted that there will be another. But for now, I have a spreadsheet list and google form to make and post on the Facebook group I created for the reunion. Because, after all, I am my mother’s daughter.