Tuesday, April 18, 2017

On Families

I just got back from a trip up to Baltimore for a family event.  My Aunt Bobbi turned 95 this year and we had a big family get-together to celebrate. This was the first time in about 25 years that we had all been together in one spot, and it was pretty cool.

Aunt Bobbi is in amazing shape.  To look at her, you'd think she was 20 years younger.  She's very sharp with a strong sense of humor.  She still drives herself around Baltimore, takes trips to Florida, cooks, and takes care of herself.  She works at the Maryland State Fair every year and does smocking so well that she wins blue ribbons for her work pretty much every year.  Wheelchairs and nursing homes are NOT in her vocabulary.  But then, she has always been a go-getter, and that mindset (plus a good set of genes) is keeping her going.  I'm impressed.  I want to be like her when I grow up.

So the family that got together this past weekend included her three daughters, their husbands and kids, their kids' spouses, THEIR kids, myself, and another cousin.  Plus the parents of one of the spouses.  Seventeen people - quite a menagerie.

I was struck by some of the family resemblences.  The 2-year-old was a tiny version of her grandmother.  One of my cousins looked just like her father - no, I mean JUST LIKE her father, down to the facial expressions.  Another cousin looked nothing like her mother but had her mother's sharp and quick wit.  Once I started noticing some of these likenesses, I looked for them even more and just kept finding them.

Families are different than friends.  You can choose your friends, but your family is for life.  These people have been in my life for almost 64 years now.  We don't get together very often - as I said earlier, some of these I hadn't seen in 25 years - but we are still connected.  There is both a depth to the relationships that is surprisingly deep, and also a shallowness, since we see various members of the clan only rarely.  So we get together, catch up on news, pick up old jokes and stories right where we left off, meet the new spouses or kids, and share some of what we've been doing.  And we read between the lines to try to understand what led up to this or that event, or notice what was not said.  It's all part of trying to understand who your family is, which helps you understand your place in the group.

So here's to my Aunt Bobbi, a wonderful lady who will be going strong for many more years.  And here's to my family, all of 'em.  I'm glad you're in my life.

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