Cousins

I'm making some last minute preparations for tomorrow.  My mom and her sisters have worked for several months to arrange a special "cousin reunion", gathering their children, since the years and the miles have moved us far beyond the people we used to be, when family get-togethers were mandatory and forced proximity turned us into unlikely friends or bitter rivals.  In a strange collision of intentions, we are all gathering near my grandparents farm, the family beacon in years past.  Now its the place where our grandpa is fading, rapidly changing from our lively, vibrant patriarch into a sick old man.  What was meant to be a day of catching up has turned into a chance to say goodbye, and hopefully to remember what we mean to each other.

Its time like this when I get nostalgic, when my mind shuffles through images and feelings, funny stories and scary moments.  I remember traveling to the farm one winter, driving for hours from Texas and arriving, FINALLY, at a darkened farmhouse with a distinctive smell that makes me think of soft wood and baking bread, cows mooing in the distance and wet grass underfoot.  Grandma stayed up to greet us, and took us up the stairs to the middle bedroom, where snores crept up from a mattress on the floor and we somehow lucked into the bed.  Crawling under cool sheets with my sister as our parents disappeared down the hall, wondering who else was sleeping behind those closed doors, who was asleep on the floor?  Then morning, food sizzling in the kitchen, coffee wafting through the house, parents with scratchy voices murmuring to each other somewhere downstairs, thundering footsteps barging in, "Wake up!  Wake up!"  When we lived in Texas, we saw our cousins so infrequently that it took me a day to remember who belonged to who, what was his name again, where do they live? 

from left: Judy, Grandma, John, Papa, Marla, Jacquie, Jayne (1970?)

Aunt Judy (the oldest) was married to Uncle Rusty (neither of them went by their actual names), and they were parents to Christel, Megan, Jeremy (who now goes by AJ), and David.  Christel is the oldest cousin, born when my mom was still a teenager.  David was allergic to everything, but somehow unfrosted PopTarts were okay for him to eat, and I would watch him with envy at the breakfast table, as I spooned oatmeal or high-fiber, low-sugar cereal into my mouth.  Aunt Jacquie (second oldest) married Uncle Ross, and they adopted Ryan and Erynne.  There was a time many years ago when I wanted to marry Ryan, and thought we'd be safe since we weren't actual blood relatives.  Thank goodness that never came to pass, or I might be forced to live in Canada, cheering for hockey and enduring 9 months of winter.  Erynne was closest to my age, and this made our mothers think we should be instant friends, but we spent many years fighting over ridiculously unimportant things it took the hormonal balance of adulthood to clear the way for us to actually like seeing each other.  Aunt Jayne (the middle child) married Uncle Gene and they were parents to Karen and Jarrod.  Karen and Jarrod were just old enough to be considered examples of everything cool that I would never be, but not so old that they were a complete mystery to me.  I remember sitting in Karen's bedroom, playing with her Peaches N Cream Barbie doll, flipping through her novels (I'm pretty sure that's when I read VC Andrews, thanks for the nightmares!), studying her like a celebrity on the cover of US Weekly.  When I'm 16, I thought, I'm going to perm my hair and wear acid-washed jeans just like her!  Jarrod, on the other hand, was like a template of inscrutable boy.  He was just as likely to be found reading a Louis L'Amour novel as cleaning his cross-bow, helping Grandpa with the farm chores or playing a video game.  What did it all mean?  I could never quite figure it out, but I knew that with Jarrod around, there would always be a second meal option whenever sloppy joes were on the menu.  Thank you, cousin for sharing my dislike of glopping meat between a bun.  My grandparents must have been so excited when they finally had a boy, my Uncle John (finally someone to balance out all the estrogen!)...so excited that they lost all sense and had my mom exactly one year later.  She was such a surprise that they abandoned the J name scheme and called her Marla.  Uncle John is married to Aunt Kathy, and they decided to fill their house to bursting with Jonathan, Will, Emily, Mary Kate, and Nathan.  Nathan is our youngest cousin, and now that he is 18 and graduated from high school, we are all officially adults.  I always loved to be around my Uncle John's family, because they projected such a sense of unity and love.  I've never heard them fight or call each other names, although certainly people have lost their patience or needed their space in such a large group.  For most of my life, my Aunt Kathy was the only mom I knew who stayed home with her kids.  I don't know if it made a difference, but she really seemed to enjoy them.  She was the one who would take us to an indoor pool in the winter or to the park in the summer.  I know its a daunting task to add two more kids to your group of five, but she never seemed to mind the extras.  And then there's me and Liz at the end.

Grandma and Papa surrounded by their grandchildren 1987?

One time, when all five families found themselves at the farm, it was decided that the adults would sleep inside and the girl cousins would stay overnight in our grandparents large camper parked in the driveway.  The boy cousins were relegated to a smaller, pop-out camper near the barn, but such is the luck of the less plentiful gender.  It had gotten very late, and Karen suggested that someone sneak into the house to get popsicles for us all.  She and Megan left on the mission, since Karen could navigate the house in the dark, and apparently Megan was quiet and sneaky enough to be a good accomplice.  For whatever reason (really ladies, why?), the oldest cousins (Christel, Karen, and Megan) decided to scare the younger ones (myself, Erynne, and Liz), by returning to the camper and telling us in solemn voices that bears had broken into the house and killed all our parents.  With a property surrounded by trees, and the darkness closing in, I took their words at face value and spent the night alternating between crying into my pillow and trying to figure out who would take me in now that I was an orphan.  I hoped I would fare better than Sarah in A Little Princess or Annie.  But with the morning sun came the revelation that the night had passed like all the others, and our parents were alive and well and sipping coffee in the kitchen.

Emily, Melissa, Will, Mary Kate, Jonathan 2008

For many years, while we lived closer and saw everyone more often, I looked forward to seeing my cousins.  I knew I could count on noise and activity, expeditions around the farm and whispered secrets, endless viewings of Turner and Hooch (one of three movies my grandparents owned, and apparently deemed child-friendly by our savvy parents).  It was a time when I knew we were having more fun at the kid table, when my grandparents had transformed their wooded "backyard" into a magical hiding place with a babbling brook and secret trails, and every moment was full of possibility.  We started to dwindle as first Christel went to college and got married, then everyone else followed suit.  My cousins moved to Massachusetts, Montana, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and some ridiculously northern town in Ontario (Collingwood?).  And then it was my turn to fly the coop.  It didn't seem so important to come back, and my cousins became a memory.

But now, thanks to facebook and email, I'm looking forward to seeing them again.  I think we might have more in common than we think, and I'm hoping a little bit of what made those days special will transform our time together once more.  Its going to be a job, remembering who belongs to who, what's his name again, and where do they live?  Because we've multiplied, and I hope we can all squeeze into a picture with Grandma and Papa one more time.