Tag: family

In this photo: my father’s brother Dwight, their father, and their sister Drexel. They were together for Father’s Day; only a few months later, my grandfather died at age 96. See Papa’s ears? Gonna have a pair just like them if I live to be 96.

First, let me tell you: If you are ever sitting at your computer plugging information into ancestry.com, surrounded by photos of your dead relatives and research paperwork that still smells like your mother’s home(s), and Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” cycles through on iTunes, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. Go outside with some crazy dogs and breathe.

Drexel is Cousin Rachel’s mother, and though I have other stories to tell about her, this is one of my favorites.

Some of you, okay, maybe none of you, remember that when we had my mother’s memorial service back in 2008, I blogged about my great-niece Rome. Her mother, my sister’s daughter Sarah, told Rome, “Aunt Becky’s lap belongs to ME.” It melted my heart, because what aunt doesn’t love to feel loved.

Another reason it so touched me is because it made me remember Aunt Drexel sitting with us in the funeral home after my father (who would always be her baby brother) died in 1985. She looked at me and patted her lap. “I’m too grown up now,” I told her, even though at least I was slender then. Her eyes sparkled as she said, “You’re not too big to sit on your aunt’s lap.” So I did, keeping as much weight as I could on the floor.

She was right. You never do get too big to sit in the lap of someone who’s loved you all your life.

I miss her. I miss them all. I’m so glad for the memories.

This is the current state of The Compound dining room table:

Because my mother had so many photo albums and boxes of photos and envelopes with photos in lots of different places, I can drive myself crazy when I’m trying to find one in particular. I finally realized it was time to try to organize them. This would be a lot easier if (1) my family hadn’t moved so often, (2) my parents hadn’t kept moving back to the same places, just different homes, (3) more of the photos had names and dates on them. Remember, Mother was the youngest of twelve children, and I have no idea how many maternal cousins I have or what they all look like, because if I recall correctly, only one of those cousins is younger than I am (by a year).

Here’s Uncle Gerald, my earliest writing mentor. I never knew him when he was this age, but I selected this photo because of a resemblance my sister noted between him and our nephew. I think she’s on to something. It’s interesting to see people from throughout my life looking back at me from a new generation. It isn’t only physical characteristics I notice. Speech patterns, ways of moving or holding the body, facial expressions–these link the family kids to relatives they never met, never saw, so aren’t consciously imitating. I remember when Josh was a toddler and was walking across the yard one day, my mother looked at him and said, “He walks exactly like Papa [my father’s father].” Papa died seven years before Josh was born.

It’s fascinating to hear new discoveries about how much of who we are is in our DNA. But as many similarities as I think I identify in mannerisms, interests, and talents, I also see that every member of my family is unique with his or her own way of navigating through life. The surprises make watching them even more enjoyable.

It’s been a long time since I was part of such a system, but as I recall, students received detention slips for various infractions. After so many detentions, the student could receive a one- to three-day suspension.

Having to stay after school in tenth grade wouldn’t have been any big deal for me. I was there anyway, waiting for my father to finish his work day and drive us home. However, I’m sure as the school’s assistant principal, he wasn’t exactly delighted to receive this slip for his files.

When the school year ended and the files were all tossed out so we could start with a clean slate the following year, Daddy gave this one to me to keep as a souvenir. See? Those things DON’T go on your permanent record and follow you around all your life.

On this Ides of March, it’s only fitting that I should note that Coach Deerman, who busted me for chewing gum, is the man who taught us Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. And I can still recite from memory:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones…

Clearly, Shakespeare, too, bought into that “permanent record” myth. Then again, our misdeeds may live on…when we put them on our blogs.

Dear Josh,

The summer between my junior and senior years in high school is one I remember very well. You’d just been born in March–but in Bruce Springsteen’s homeland, so I’d only seen photos of you. When your mother said the two of you were coming to stay with us that summer, I had no idea what to expect.

I’d learned a lot already because of your cousin Daniel, who was then more than a year old. For example, I’d had to accept the hard truth that I was no longer the baby of the family. That all those presents under the Christmas tree were his. That baby birthdays are a much bigger deal than teenage birthdays. That learning how to say your first words and take your first steps and eat your first solid foods and all that stuff eclipsed family excitement over getting a driver’s license or opening your first bank account or going to your first prom.

That little rat!

But that’s not all Daniel had taught me. Because of him, I learned what it was to truly love another being without condition. To want only the best for him. To hope every single day that he’d be safe and well. To suffer through each earache and sneeze and bump as if it were my own. To feel like my heart might explode out of me when he laughed or did something adorable. To see the world through his eyes and know again what wonder and amazement even the tiniest, seemingly most insignificant, things could evoke.

Then what worried me was… What if I only had enough space in my heart for one? If I loved you, would that take away some of my love for him? If I thought you were amazing, did that somehow make him a little less amazing?

And then you arrived, and I learned what parents and very fortunate aunts know: Love never divides when you give it. It only multiplies.

Oh, the joy of that summer. Your mother and I shared a bedroom again, as we had as girls, only you were in there, too. Every day the first sound I heard was either you crying or you laughing, and both were okay with me. Instead of being a surly teen who wanted to sleep in, I couldn’t wait to hang out with you. I’d hold you, watch your eyes get huge as you took in the world. I’d change your diapers without complaint–um, even that time you wee’d again as I was changing you, and the stream landed on the “Certificate of Going Steady” I’d painstakingly hand-lettered for my boyfriend. I’d give you bottles, walk with you in the yard–although you must understand, I had to compete with your mother, grandparents, and the aforementioned boyfriend for that privilege.

You had the biggest laugh, and everyone laughed with you. Your angry tears were just as booming, and your whole body would turn red with rage when you cried. I’m sorry to say, the crying made us laugh, too, that anything that small could hold so much emotion. We found our old Polaroid Swinger that summer, and these terrible black and white photos are from it. They looked fine at the time, but now you can barely see the images in person. Scanned and adjusted, they look like they were taken using some of those cool hipster applications that are all the thing these days. From the beginning, you were cutting edge and ahead of your time!

School friends came over that summer, and Debby and I had bought two big posters for coloring with felt tip pens. My poster was of fish in the ocean; hers was of flowers in a garden. We all sat around the dining room table coloring them. You’d lie next to us or sit in our laps, cooing to yourself or “talking” to us while we colored. Your presence made the days cheerful and fun (and I think it should be noted that years later, when that summer’s boyfriend had his second son, he named him “Joshua David,” same as you).

You made my last “childhood” summer magical for me, and created a love in my heart that has never diminished, never felt anything but pride in you. I love you so much and hope today you’re having a happy birthday. I’m glad to be counted among all the people who are thrilled you were born.

I love you,
Aunt Becky

Infant Josh with Grandmother Dear