Last week, on their way through from Illinois to New York for a wedding, my cousin David and his lovely wife Deanna stopped through PA and took my brother and his family and Pop Bare out for supper. Later, back at Pop's apartment, we navigated the realm of video chat platforms and I was able to see them and speak to them. It was incredibly refreshing and uplifting. I went to bed after that and it took me several quarters of an hour to calm back down. The last time we had seen them was via video chat at Aunt MJ's celebration of life in November of last year.
David, as I have written before, is our eldest cousin. He and I represent two bookends on the shelf that are our grandparents’ grandchildren. Coincidentally, we will both be turning 39 again, next year. Me for the eleventh time.
As they regaled me with tales of their journey, and talked of how good it was to see Pop and Rich, et. al. David started reeling out numbers of years that it had been since we had seen each other in real life. Like his mother, my dear Aunt MJ, he has an iron grip on such things. The amounts of time that have passed, variously from his visits to PA, to our visits to Chicago, ranged at or beyond a decade. Far too long.
Somewhat more painfully, the last time we drove to PA to visit Pop Bare and Rich, was when Pop had his last major surgery, in 2021, I think. Since he moved to his apartment, I have been promising to get up there to get some things I asked them to save for me, but the years have gotten away from me.
Time was, we tried to get up there at least once a year. It was easier, back then. We almost always stayed with Rich. Rich's kids were little and could easily bunk up and make room for Uncle Dave and Aunt Micki. That's just how it went. During our last visit, we opted to stay at Pop's former domicile while he was in hospital. There were spare rooms enough to visit, but opting to finally take our advice after one of his knee replacements went dicky, he sold up and departed to a very cozy apartment. No room for the grown-up kids to stay. Also, Rich's house now has two, nearly full-grown teenagers (we Bares run to height) which makes it cramped for everyone.
However, these are not excuses, because we have had issues finding time in our own schedules to get away. The last time we went to Chicago (somewhat before Pop had his major surgery) to visit MJ, we were not yet grandparents, none of our kids were married and we didn't yet have geriatric pups. Also, it occurs to me that Evan and Sive living across the country has meant that we opt to go to see them when we have a free week and to see the grands when we have a weekend free.
In short, the many practical considerations, familial responsibilities, distances, work, and the cost of vehicles, fuel and hotel reservations have kept us very local for too long. Add to all of this the odd, hypnotic way that time passes, lulling us with that potent lie that we still have time, and it becomes agonizingly clear that we have been remiss.
My family is huge and spread all over the country. Some, like our Evan, are west-coasters. Many are sprinkled liberally throughout the midwest, some live in New England. A handful of us below the Mason-Dixon line. Not only are we all over, but add the many roles, responsibilities, requirements of adulthood and each of us having our own small clans growing and thriving in those places, and the odds of us getting to see each other again become ever slimmer. We tend to think that the big family events, like funerals or weddings, would draw us all back together. It seems to require an act of Congress (very much the current iteration thereof) to accomplish.
My friend Matthew was away recently enjoying an entire weekend family reunion in the northeast. Happy as I was for him, I couldn't help but feel a pang of envy. Not to join him at his family reunion, though perhaps that might have been fun, but to have a family reunion to go to of our own. What fun for the grandchildren to gather once more in some equidistant city, and spend a weekend telling stories of yore. It would be a treasure trove of tales, laughs, joyful tears and literal reunion with flesh and blood family.
In the meantime, David has proposed that we gather soon in Chicago, flying over to see a Blackhawks game and eat amazing food and reconnect. Rich is looking at his schedule, we are looking at ours. David also started a text group with our surnames, to which he attached a photo of himself, Rich and Pop Bare all together. Pop is going to send me a copy to hang up.
As the youngest of us, I was almost more of an age with David's children, being only a handful of years older. I came along so late, that the cousins feel like a brigade of extra adults, for whom I have always kindled deep affection. My cousin Stephanie and her husband Len taught me about great music and took me to see an R-rated movie well before I was 17. David and Josh always felt like extra elder brothers. Hilarious, brilliant, talented, and cool. Their elder half-sisters, who I only met later in life, took such great care of Aunt MJ, and have been such pillars to the family that I cannot but love and admire them as a matter of gratitude and respect.
Our other aunt's children (the middle sibling) is only in contact with two of her children and not to open the family pantry and reveal the secret skeletons, but the other two are no less awesome people for whom I felt a similar sense of awe and celebrity growing up. They all used to visit regularly, too.
My own proximity to our grandparents as a young person gave me an unusually rich experience with them. My grandmother was and remains one of my absolute favorite humans. All she taught me, all she gave me, all the traditions (peppermint tea with honey at bed time, fresh baked bread) that she started with me are treasures beyond the worth of gold. Being with my cousins could only deepen that experience by getting to see her through their experiences and memories. It would also be a great way to honor her and our grandfather, since being together could only awaken memories dulled by time.
At the celebration of MJ’s life, Cousin Beth spoke for me when she suggested that we all strive to unite the grandkids soon. Less an entreaty, more a kid (at heart) looking forward to seeing his cousins at Christmas, Hanukkah or Easter as he once did. I am still a thrall to the pull of kindred. Our wide-ranging clan, full of clever, brilliant, funny, generous, and good looking people hasn’t been all together in literal decades. I have always felt too far from them because of my age, but now I long to feel connected to the only other people in the world who share the exact amount of genetic history as one half of all our families. For them, maternal, for me and Rich, paternal, but no less potent for all that.
As grandparents ourselves, nothing would make me happier than for the offspring of our three boys to be as close as those boys are to their cousins. It would be great if they visited us regularly, but I could wish that they all visit one another regularly with even more enthusiasm. One day, as with our grandparents, we will not be here. Our grands will need one another to feel that sense of connection and belonging that only family can give. I can only assume, but I feel fairly robustly certain that my assumption is grounded in fact, that my grandparents wished the same thing.
