It's A Family Reunion

I have a lot of first cousins on my mother's side of the family. My grandmother birthed 17 children, four died in infancy. I never knew my Aunt Helen, she died before I was born but I knew the rest of mother's siblings. There are only four of my mother's siblings still living.

Over the years, we've gathered for a lot of funerals, often in clusters. My mother died two weeks after her oldest sister, my Aunt Mabel. After my mother's funerals we (a group of first cousins) gathered and mused as to why we had never held a family reunion. We decided to rectify this oversight and give ourselves a reason to come together other than to bury someone. The Hall (my mother's maiden name) family reunion committee was formed, consisting of my sister Rhonda, my brother James (aka Jimmy), and my cousins, Michelle, Jennifer, Betty Rose, and Laura Ann. By the third planning call the group had reduced to me, Michelle, Jennifer, and Betty Rose. The others had succumbed to the dreaded family reunion planning committee dropout syndrome.

After months of the family reunion planning committee meeting via bi-weekly conference calls, we held our first Hall Family reunion from July 3-July 5. It was well attended with 80+ family members joining in the festivities. We talked, we ate, we sang and we danced. Members of my grandmother's family, the Flemings, also participated in the reunion and I got to meet people whose names I had only heard in family stories told by my grandmother. Then there were those of us who knew each other but had not been together other than for a funeral in years and it was a delight to reconnect in an atmosphere that didn't involve sorrow. In an email to my friend Mark, I summed it up thus: "Our family reunion went well. Only one relative drank too much and she wasn't a mean drunk. There were no fights, and only a few minor insults. We may do it again in two years."

I neglected to add that I did The Twist with my cousin Betty Rose in front of a room full of people, laughed loudly and often, hugged a lot and was hugged a lot in return, and that a good time was had by all.

Laugh Loudly and Often

Mama had a well developed sense of humor and I'm pretty certain that she would appreciate the WTF Awards. She conferred quite a few such awards in her time. Her favorite time to share her nominees was usually at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning. The telephone would ring very loudly, (Ever noticed how the phone rings much louder than usual before 10:00 am?) causing me to flail about in an effort to locate the phone and extricate myself from the bed covers.

"Helloooo..."

"Good morning baby girl, were you asleep?"

No, I'm up planting a vegetable garden to feed all the starving children in the world and when I get done, I'm going to bring about world peace. Okay, I never said that, instead I'd say, "Hey mama, I was just about to get up." We both knew I was lying but it didn't really matter.

Mama's favorite candidate for a WTF award was her sister, my Aunt Nellie Ruth. I could judge just how extreme my Aunt Ruth's behavior had been based on whether my mother simply called her Ruth or Nellie Ruth. Calling her by both of her given names was a good sign that whatever event my mother wished to relate was a real doozy.

My Aunt Ruth is in her 80's now, but she has been behaving with all the entitlement of someone who has reached the age of 100+ since she was in her early 50's. My mother swore that Aunt Ruth just decided to be old one day because she felt that entitled her to demand that everyone wait on her. Perhaps that's why Aunt Ruth had such a predilection for calling the rescue squad. She never had her "attacks" in the daytime; it was always in the wee hours of the morning. Around 4:00 am, Aunt Ruth would awaken and determine that her head felt hot, and that she felt dizzy. Certain that she was having hot flashes as a precursor to some major attack that involved her heart, she'd dial 911, get dressed while waiting for them to come, and be waiting when the rescue squad arrived, fully dressed and carrying her pocketbook. Once she got settled at the hospital, she would call my mother and announce, "I'm in the hospital. You need to come see about me and notify my church members that I'm in the hospital."

At first, my mother would hurry to get to the hospital, but after several years of multiple emergency room visits, mama would turn over and go back to sleep, confident that she could wait until the sun rose to check on Aunt Ruth at the hospital. Mama also began to question the hot flashes that always preceded the 911 call.

"Nellie Ruth, you can't be having hot flashes at your age! You're in your 70's, you don't have anything to have hot flashes with!"

"I am too having hot flashes all about my face and head. I've had three heart attacks!

Aunt Ruth doesn't call the rescue squad any more. She has settled into regular visits to her doctor in the daytime. She has never been diagnosed with any heart trouble of any significance, but she still insists that she has had more than one major heart attack. Indeed, her heart is so weak that the doctors didn't tell her directly that she has had the heart attacks, but she knows from the way they look at her and whisper in front of her.

Mama's youngest brother, my Uncle David calls me often just to talk. He used to talk with Mama several times a week from his home in Dallas. We find ourselves cracking up over how my mother would relate one of Aunt Ruth's 911 adventures.

Mama wasn't perfect and neither was our relationship. She was fully human, like the rest of us. We had our disagreements, our confrontations over things that I can't really recall any more. What I remember was her laughter, her ability to do all the voices when she was telling a story, the way she remembered the smallest details of the events that she related.

Thank you for all of the loving comments. I really am okay; I wouldn't trade the occasional tears for anything. They just remind me of how much I loved her and how much I was loved.