Five Short Stories for October

It is that time again! Shadows lengthen outside; summer has passed and the year wanes. I have been diligently working on a series of short stories to reveal to you during each week of the best (and my favorite) month of the year.

This autumn's tales are a slight departure from previous Octobers as you'll see. Not so much direct horror. I hope you will enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. 

As usual, if these tales aren't your cup of Irish Breakfast, just hang on and my regular essays will return in November.

Beryl Almighty 

As a single mother of two elementary-aged children, Beryl struggles to find balance and her place in the choppy social structure of school-age parenting. Waking one morning to discover that she may have the powers of a god, Beryl finds out that even possessing godlike abilities may not be as beneficial as one might assume.

Gatorland Junction 

Fresh from a stint in prison and trying to put his life back together, Barry gets a job cutting the grass at a fancy apartment and condo complex in balmy Charleston, S.C. When a hot summer day turns stormy, catching Barry working by a retention pond, he finds himself locked in a battle against a formidable and ancient swamp dweller that has claimed the pond for its own.

Oh, Avatar

We have all created personas that do not really match up with the real us on social media. In this story, a man chronicles how his creation, which he used to build an idealized version of himself over the years, has taken on a life of its own and wants him gone. 

Earth Circle

John Kevin Eddington yearns to break free of gravity and fly away from the grief and loss of life. He has climbed to the top of one of the Twin Pinnacles, a nearly 800-foot stone tower in downtown Hantonville, to finally break the bonds of the earth and return to the arms of the woman he loves.

The Adventure of the Double Lady 

John H. Watson, doughty companion of Sherlock Holmes on countless adventures, takes down a book of previously unpublished tales in which he and the great detective face a malevolent mind, sinister and determined to undo a family home and checkmate Holmes at every turn. It will put the duo to great pains to solve the mystery and it could cause the masterful Sherlock Holmes his sanity.

Thanks for your dedicated readership and I hope you have a great autumn and a terrifyingly wonderful October!

A Head Full of Crows

Few things in life are harder to control than our own inner realm. The world pummels us with so much stimulus, so much emotional feedback, data, physical sensations, involuntary reactions (from sneezes and hiccups to the more—um—pressing needs below the bellybutton) it is amazing any of us can think or focus at all. Add those special alphabetical acronyms, like ADD or ADHD, among others and you will find it increasingly difficult just to maintain attention to one person speaking let alone an entire world of information. 

It is for this reason that I always laughed when the sensei on some martial arts show or movie told his aspiring pupil to “empty your mind”. It seemed like mystical nonsense back then, but it also seemed impossible specifically to me. My early forays into mindfulness were exercises in distraction and futility. If you can imagine a ruined castle or cathedral and that space is filled with hundreds of squawking crows and ravens, the din is exactly what the inside of my mind was like as I tried to “empty” it. My attempts to quiet the inner mind only managed to jack up my anxiety to levels that could tip me into a panic attack. There was no quieting that inner space. The more anxious I got, the louder the noise and the more upset those mental birds got.

For a long time, I managed to get along okay, as long as I only focused on one thing at a time. But life is rather like that scene from I Love Lucy, where she’s working the conveyor in a chocolate shop. Soon things would decay into hilarious chaos. Micki or my bosses would be talking to me and my mind was elsewhere. Meetings were a chore. Conversations were a nightmare. Add to all this the ease with which my inner self got stirred to the point of overstimulation and a healthy dose of emotions and anxiety and you can see the mental agony I was in. That was just one-on-one, or in reasonable small groups. In large, loud, open spaces with lots of people, like a store or the Fall Festival or the Zoo when it is busy, you can imagine my discomfort. Finally, just for fun, place a healthy dollop of social anxiety on top of all of this. I was in a bad way.

I was raised in a family that believed trials of this sort were caused by “powers and principalities of the air” which is a fancy way to say demons or evil spirits. Looking back now, I can see that many of my school issues, my problems fitting in, feeling connected all stem from the way my brain processes information and trauma at being told to ‘conform’ or to ‘try harder’ to fit in. There was no acceptance, no support, no help. The way I was, felt, saw the world had everything to do with me not believing hard enough in their worldview and very little to do with actual, legitimate mental health issues (issues, by the way, that everyone in our family has). This was also around the time that I started to learn that alcohol and nicotine really helped to calm the birds and allow me a space of internal peace. As a kid, most of my alcohol was supplied by my step brothers, but once I was old enough to afford my own (and legally), I started to understand that it provided me with a very useful crutch, smoothing the feathers of the cawing birds in my skull. 

That way lies madness. No substance, no matter how it appears to work in the beginning, can ever take the place of learning to cope with things without chemical assistance. The more I drank, the more I felt I needed to drink. The genie in that particular bottle made the ailment of the mind much worse without access to drink, so that the part of life that had once been nicely calmed by a drink or two, were jittery until several drinks were imbibed. Then, it was half a bottle of heavy stuff. You see the evil of it. The more I had, the more I wanted and felt I needed. Soon, no amount of alcohol would calm the birds and drinking those amounts has its own set of consequences. 

Finally, after a devastating set of circumstances over too many years, I got help. I stopped drinking. I got into a program. The longer I went without a drink (each day a record-breaking duration), the more the crows started to caw. Now, there was no magic potion to calm them. Now, I had to learn how to face the angry avians in my head, as I ought to have learned when I was a small person. There, family and religion were against me, but now, it was (and remains) my responsibility to deal with the sometimes maddening rookery in my brain.

Sobriety requires that I try to tune into my innermost thoughts and dial to the many swirling dark birds there to get at the root of how they got in there, why they prefer my head and how to manage things without addictive substances. The first thing I had to do was understand the nature of the birds themselves. They are not demons or evil spirits. In fact many of them are learned behaviors, modeled to me when I was young. Some are genetic propensities, handed down from generations. Some are trauma-based anxieties, again demonstrated by parents and family who had no idea how (and I sometimes think, no business) raising an intelligent and curious and sensitive kid. It took me a little time to understand that there was nothing wrong with me, per se. These were natural and commonplace among many young people of my generation. So I had to brave the inside of my head and learn to quiet my inner realm and look and listen and feel and think and remember and reflect and learn. All things I was desperate not to do for many years, and which now I had to face, if I wanted to heal and grow.

My first challenge was understanding the nature of some of my thinking. A therapist once told me that we see ourselves as our parents see us. Lack of confidence, social discomfort, and brutal internal dialogues come almost entirely from things we believe about ourselves because our parents made them clear to us in their own behavior. I’m not blaming my parents, here. 

They were only as good at the job as their own parents were, and I’m of a generation whose parents were raised, in turn, by people who didn’t talk about things, didn’t acknowledge mental health, pretended everything was okay and who didn’t (and often couldn’t) manage things that swerved anywhere beyond the status quo. It took being a parent myself to learn that no parent raises kids in a vacuum. Families are dynamic organisms being pressured by all kinds of challenges and personal issues. They were doing the best they could with the tools they had. I sometimes lament (even now) that those tools happened to be the childhood development equivalent of stone axes and animal skins.

As I reflected on my upbringing, trying to give grace to my parents, and to see how it must have been for them, something interesting happened. A large, black bird fluttered down onto a rafter and quietly preened its sable feathers. Each time I acknowledged the problem, accepted how things were and spoke a tiny word of forgiveness for something that, until then, I had blamed and held a resentment for, another bird settled. It had to be done again and again. Soon a whole group of black birds sat quietly, their beady black eyes intent on my inner voice.

Next, I had to look at how I saw my own actions. Here was a man with a serious disease that caused him to hurt the people he loved. A hundred times, maybe a thousand, I had acted badly, used hateful words, reacted defensively, argued when it would have been better to agree, raged when it would have been better to laugh, blamed when it would have been better to empathize. It took a lot of hard work. Looking at family is one thing. Facing one’s actions as they are, without excuse, is another. Yet, each time I did acknowledge, accept and forgive, another crow settled onto a perch. The work wasn’t just internal. I had to actually seek amends from all the people that I had harmed. Those birds swirled for a long time, because it took me a lot of work to be ready, but also a lot of time to muster my courage. Eventually, I got to a place in my life where I needed to forgive just one more person.

Being inside my own head was now a much different experience. Yes, the birds still got jittery and swirled and screamed. Yes, it could be raucous in there. But I was learning to gain command of the ebony wings. I could close my eyes anywhere, take a few deep breaths and bring myself back to a state of calm. There was just one large bird that still never settled, that sometimes swept past, brushing me with its feathers, or clacking its beak at me irritably. This was a larger, darker, more ominous bird. I knew it and it knew me and was used to me ignoring it. I had, for years, pretended that I could comfortably get by without dealing with it, but that particular raven knew this was a lie I told myself and its sharp, steely gaze said as much.

It can be hard, growing up. I had a hard time with it. Things weren’t great for my parents, either and I had to learn to accept that and forgive them. I had to forgive bullies, circumstances, friends, loved ones and teachers. I had to seek forgiveness for my own stupidity and hatefulness. What I hadn’t done was look at myself in the mirror and name the one person who still hadn’t been dealt with. One person, hurting, terrified, anxious, lonely, worried that he would never be good enough for anyone to love. By the time he grew into a man, feathers had sprouted from his arms, and his face had elongated into a thick, black beak. His eyes glinted with self-hatred. His mind replayed the folly of his former actions and cast censure on them.

Christian ideology is full of rules about seeking forgiveness. We are told we are sinners, that we will never be good enough. That no matter how much we seek forgiveness, it can only be granted by a special set of circumstances. Salvation, or forgiveness of all sin, can only come when we have perfect faith that the death of a demi-god cleansed us. This creates an internal dialog that repeats every time we are at fault, “You cannot ever be good enough, to be truly loved.” I grew up with this lie pretending to be not only true, but the unshakable Word of God. When you’re in a closed system, broken by the rules of that system, locked into the world your adults believe, even after you escape and learn to live like a free person, the whispers continue.

The other birds settled, but the largest one still swirled and screamed. Who could tell me I was good enough? Who could tell me that the lies about the state of my spiritual life no longer had power over me? How could I ever break the power of those ideas? Who could issue me the key to break free? Where was the peace of my deconversion, my sobriety, my new, healthier life? The bird swooped, I ducked, the other birds started to shuffle nervously, to squabble; black feathers filled the air. What had worked for the others? Looking at them, directing my attention and examining them; learning and growing. I gazed steadily at the largest bird and it settled before me. Like something out of Poe, the creature glared at me and I looked unblinkingly back at it. I could see the boy hiding in the feathers, the rubber band holding on the beak, the sneakers with taped-on construction paper talons. I could see through the disguise.

Here was a boy I knew and knew well. My first, knee-jerk reaction was to scold him for this ludicrous display, but then, I breathed. I asked myself why he was dressed like this, what was he hiding from? I took another deep breath and saw an adolescent, not dressed like a raven, but just a regular kid, gazing back at me with questioning, fearful eyes. I raised my arms to him and he slowly, with painful hesitation, moved toward me. The ruins are now silent. Every bird perched around the cathedral of my mind goes to stoney silence. 

Here is the boy and the man. Here between them is a vast, dark sea of words, confessions, tears and sullen loneliness. Here is a young man with hopes, dreams, a wish to have meaning, to be loved, to be of worth to someone. Here is a man, who has those things, but only because he got the help he needed only just in time. The words are not said aloud, but they aren’t unspoken. Here is perfect mutual understanding that can only come from the inside of one head. Here is forgiveness sought and given, mutually, simultaneously, sincerely. Here is a man, looking at the boy he was and accepting him, loving him without blame, resentment, regret or bitterness. Here is the boy, a well of gratitude, finally being loved unconditionally.

The ruins have been gloomy, until now, but light from a bright sun, settling onto the horizon pierces the dark. The crows unite in joyful cacophony. Then, one by one, they leave the rookery, and sweep and roll and fly, as only happy crows can. The boy disappears, so does the man, but a new person is formed in the union. He is a man, but his heart is that of a young person. It's not perfect, but they are trying. And, when you can love yourself and find forgiveness—the kind that is born of love and acceptance, not mystical rules and rituals meant to keep people miserable—the birds in your head get happy and things get better.

Epilogue: Nothing is ever perfect, nor does healing come without work. I learned early on that getting into a recovery program helps, but it is contingent upon spiritual health (this isn’t religious spirituality, but the triumvirate of mental, emotional and physical health). It isn’t enough to stop drinking. I’ve seen too many “oldtimers” as we call them, that have thirty or more years of sobriety, but who have not grown, changed or made any personal progress. My own progress is not to be set up as a moral example. I’m a work in progress and it takes daily effort to keep getting better. If I don’t do the work, I will have a rough day. Some days are a challenge because life can be rough and that can make any brain cage full of birds a little rowdy. I try to give myself grace and do the next right thing. It’s not always perfect, but things are better. For that, I’m grateful beyond caws.

With(Out) Power Comes Great Responsibility

We dashed off fairly early this past Saturday to go to Greensboro to shop. Eagerly, we donned our day-off duds and sped off up the highway after a healthy breakfast made with provender from our well-stocked fridge. First we headed to Ollie’s to look for deals on Halloween decorations. After, we got lunch and then headed to Costco to get some more provisions. We were just blithely enjoying day one of a long weekend, much needed after several grim and grueling weeks. As usual, we lost ourselves in Costco and by the time we were wheeling our giant buggy to our car, the storm was building and the wind was blowing hard. We got the car loaded as fat drops started to fall and got in, just as the bottom fell out.

I have driven through some wild storms in my adult life, but few were as hair-raising as that one. Saturday's storm was the heaviest rain and straight-line winds I have ever experienced. As we tooled along at not more than 25 mph, debris from the trees surrounding the highway filled the roadway and made our progress dubious at best. Everyone had their flashers on. Everyone trundled along. Small gatherings huddled under bridges and overpasses hoping to evade the shocking downpour. As we slowly neared home, our hearts rose into our throats in unison. Our big oak was on both our minds. We glanced at each other, trying to mentally and emotionally prepare for the inevitable as a huge bolt of lightning arced across the sky to the ground-shaking artillery report of thunder. We counted the blocks and noted the tree detritus as we lumbered homeward.

Fortunately, by some incredible miracle, our big tree was still standing—leaning as usual—and other than a few branches, everything seemed okay. When we got inside, we noticed that the power was out. Then my heart really sank. Few things are as frustrating as a power outage. One of the benefits of not living in the wilder parts of the county, is that we have a very trusty and sturdy electrical infrastructure. The power goes out regularly, but Duke Power has worked diligently over the years to make a self-healing power supply system. In recent years, even if the power goes out, it is only usually for short periods. We’ve been fairly lucky and generally, the situation has improved since we moved here.

However, after Saturday's massive, mainly red and yellow blob on the radar went shrieking past, thousands in Asheboro had to go without power. We were among them. The power died at 3:06 (based on our devices, not on the data sent by the power company) and didn't come back on until 7:49 a.m. Sunday morning. When we got home, we jammed our coolers with ice packs and waited until all the thunder had departed before putting things away more thoroughly. We played UNO on our screened-in porch with Jess, who had been hunkering downstairs, until Elliott got home from work. Then we went for supper and more shopping for more Halloween stuff, hoping to stumble back home to lights and power. Sadly, our hopes were dashed. 

Dejectedly, we went back to the screened-in porch to play a couple hands of Yahtzee by faux lantern light, before finally turning in. Our bedroom was silent; no fan, no music, no TV. Micki kept the lantern on low and covered it a bit, so we could see if we needed the bathroom, but otherwise, we lay there, until sleep slowly crept over us.

My own sleep was fitful. It was too quiet. It was much too warm. The day had been too stressful. My ears were continuously pricked for the sound of big trucks and the roar of chainsaws. I was also listening for the telltale digital chimes of juice reaching all our devices. I fell asleep, eventually, and woke several times, having dreamed the power came back on only to wake to disappointment. Eventually, Micki rose and asked if we could open a window for a little breeze, or go back to the screened-in porch. I opted for the porch. We were sitting quietly. I was still intensely groggy and grumpy. I went back inside to get a drink of water and use the bathroom and try to start the kettle (dang it!) and try to wake up to face a long day without power. I‘m not melancholizing at all. It was stuffy, hot and humid in the house and what I really needed was a steaming cup of tea and another hour to consider life before attempting anything as daunting as facing a full day without power.

Our en-suite bathroom has no windows. With the door closed and no lights, it is pitch black in there. My eyes kept darting toward our blue digital clock, to no avail. I cursed my stupid habits and washed my hands. Then I glanced at the clock again. It took my brain a minute to define the blinking 12:00 I saw there. Then it finally went in. By all the grace of the gods of electricity, old and new, the power had been restored! I leaped like a young gazelle back to the screened-in porch, where I gave Micki a meaningful look and then glanced meaningfully at the ceiling fan. She looked back at me questioningly and I repeated the move. She looked at me meaningfully, not understanding what I wished to convey. I glanced back up at the ceiling fan meaningfully. It was a big morning for meaningful looks. She glanced up to see the fan gaining speed. And, like for me a few minutes before, the lights came on, both literally and figuratively. She whooped with joy and we went in to enjoy the rooms and passages of our home as the HVAC system brought things back to a more modern temperature.

All together, we were without power for about 16 hours. As I drafted this over the long holiday weekend, some people were still without power. Several very large, very heavy, very old trees came down hard on the power lines and, until just a day ago, left upwards of 5 thousand residents bitter and too warm for much comfort. We both got cooling showers and went for breakfast and then I headed back to Greensboro to return the meats we’d bought the day before that had been lost to temperature and buy fresh. Micki spent that time emptying and cleaning our fridge and freezers of everything. When I got home, we stored the new foodstuffs and then went shopping to get fridge staples, like hotsauce, ketchup, mustard and milk and cheese. By the time we got home and repacked everything, we were both exhausted and opted to have baked potatoes for dinner. I had to run back out for sour cream and salsa.

All this got me thinking about how lucky we actually have been to this point. Yes, I had been making rather heavy weather both about having to endure the agonies of no power for not even a full day and for how slowly the power company had been to complete their repairs. We’d been without power less time than many people nearby, who were still enduring the lack of lightning juice in their walls. Why was I complaining? Why was I being such a baby? 

For thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands, humans walked, crawled, ate, slept, made small humans and died dealing solely with whatever air was around them in their yurts or hovels, caves or teepees or wigwams. They could make things a bit warmer, certainly, but not cooler. The steamier the air, the more the agony of our forebears increased. People who lived in the desert had no way to stay cool. They endured arid temperatures that dried them out and made water a precious currency. Anyone near the equator would find themselves with frizzy hair and drippy, fungusy toes. More recently, but no less comfortable, many of our ancestors decided that they would like to dress up for the Revolution or the Civil War in far too many layers of wool and felt and go out and fight in hot, humid fields of the American South with no reprieve in sight. 

Air conditioning, the amenity that I miss more than anything when the power winks out, is newer still and has its inception in the 20th Century. It has only really become ubiquitous in the last sixty or so years and is still not to be found everywhere. Places in New England or the Pacific Northwest don’t have A/C at all, and if you want it, you have to rent one to load into your windows. In the Schaefferstown house, we endured balmy Southeast PA summers with nothing more than the hopes that the cold, limestone walls retained even the slightest chill from the long and dark winter previous. That was hopeless. If anything, it was a nightmare of 18th Century proportions and I remember cursing whoever invented the weakly puffing table fan in my room for its sour breath of stale wind. If we lost power in that house, things went on as usual, because power had only come to it within a very short century.

If I think hard, it is probably my experiences in that house (once again) that have cemented in me such a distaste for a lack of power. I don’t like being hot and I have spent a lot of my life associating being inside during the deadly heat of summer with relief from such things. The irony is that the earth is getting hotter. This past summer was the hottest on record. Ever. That’s been the case for the last thirty summers. Meaning that (dare I age myself) since I graduated high school, the earth has increased by at least one degree to the temps we are seeing now. It’s only going to continue. With the heat comes more erratic weather. The more whooshy the wind and rain get, the more likely the power will go out in our neighborhood. Winter will not leave much room for easy breathing, because, sadly, El Nino in the mid-Pacific will likely cause a pretty moist and chilly winter for us and we’re right at the line where just a few degrees can mean the difference between a few inches of snow and a load of tree-breaking ice. The latter almost always means power outages.

So, we got lucky, all told. A bit of a long and daunting Saturday where we had hoped and longed for an easier, relaxing weekend, but otherwise, we were fortunate. A coworker said that she hoped a branch would dent her roof, so that the insurance company would take care of replacing the whole thing. We, too, need a roof redux but we won’t be quite that lucky, I’m afraid, which is probably a good thing. In the meantime, I’m thinking we’re going to have to adapt our thinking and possibly our home to expect more power loss and also, probably work to connect an alternate and temporary source of power so we can keep the fridge running and the water hot. I’ve already started shopping for generators. 

It's Been How Long?

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.