My mother had only one brother, which makes it easy to keep track of family on that side. My mother had four children, as did her brother: thus, I have four cousins, one of whom is the girl cousin I adore. I stopped keeping track of additions to the family after the first generation of cousins. My cousins had children (my cousins once-removed), and their children had children (my cousins twice-removed). They are all so removed, I've given up all hope of remembering their names. I'm lucky I remember they exist.
Things are a little more hectic on my father's side. Adoptions, age gaps, my widower grandfather marrying a succession of sisters... it gets really confusing, especially come to find out my father was adopted—a fact that apparently everyone knew but us. The people I called Aunt So-and-So and Uncle Such-and-Such weren't really relatives at all, which could explain why my immediate family felt like outcasts at Christmas get-togethers. (Although I swear my adopted father and his so-called cousin could have passed for brothers in their younger years, leading me to wonder who my father's father really was. But that's speculation with no satisfactory ending.)
Somehow I became Facebook friends last year with a younger cousin on my father's side. A few weeks ago, I happened to notice that she was planning a family reunion. Even though we aren't close and I only see her once a year at Christmas (her mother was like a sister to my father, but they were really cousins a generation apart), I decided to invite myself: What could she do, say no? I invited my mother, too. “Sure,” the cousin replied, “but bring your own meat.”
My mother begged off at the last minute, claiming digestive problems (you can get away with that when you are almost 85) and up until the time came to go out the door, I seriously considered doing the same. I'm not really a social person. But my curiosity won out. I remembered the cousins I spent Christmases with when we were children, pre-teens, and teenagers. Boy cousins I had crushes on. Girl cousins I envied for their Barbie Dreamhouses. Eleven cousins I hadn't seen in thirty years. Do they still have hair? Do they still play with Barbies? I wanted to know. So I went to the park, bringing a salad and some chips scavenged on the way from the grocery store.
I looked across the wide expanse of green grass at the crowd of people milling around a long line of picnic tables. I didn't recognize anyone. Was this the right family reunion? This could get embarrassing. I hesitated behind a tree, examining the faces. At first, they all looked like strangers. Then I saw the Facebook cousin and her family. Yep, this was my family. People looked in puzzlement at me as I approached the matriarch of the family, a tiny wizened wrinkled woman in a blue track suit.
“Hi, do you remember me?” I smiled at her.
“Of course I remember you,” she said. “You're Carol Mary. You look just like your mother.”
People clustered around then, some to find out the identity of this stranger talking to their mother/ grandmother/ great-grandmother, and some to greet me with exclamations and hugs. For me, recognition took time; thirty years changes people. Hairlines recede. Hair turns gray. Waistlines expand. But smiles stay the same. I recognized the kids I spent Christmases with, a little grayer, and in one or two cases, gayer, but all still the same. Kids in grown up bodies. Just like me.
For the next three hours, I moseyed from cousin to cousin, group to group, introducing myself and snapping candid photos. Memories began to flood back. We reminisced. The dread cousin Jimmy turned out to be a pretty nice guy, mellowed by cancer and a reduced life expectancy. His scary wife turned out to be an overly protective untreated Al-Anon. Who knew. I met cousins, cousins once-removed, twice-removed, and thrice-removed... four generations buzzed around the picnic tables, along with a dog or two, barbecuing burgers, grazing the salads, nibbling at cookies. Some moved more slowly than others—the oldest one is 91, the youngest hasn't figured out how to stand upright yet. Adoptions didn't matter. We were all family.
Next month is my 40th high school reunion. That should be interesting. I'll keep you posted.
