Day and Night, Night and Day
A few months ago, I was harassing my mother about putting her will together. Isn’t that a nice sentence? Geesh. Anyway, I was asking her about her relatives and making sure she had a way for us to get in touch with them if needed. Growing up, we never spent much time with her family, and she never appeared to keep in touch with them either. It’s really amazing what passed for normal behavior when you don’t know any different. Well, one thing led to another, and one day my sister called to tell me she had spoken to my mother’s sister (yes, this is my aunt, it is just taking me some time to adjust to saying it) and that I should be expecting a call any time. Sure enough, she called me. It was so bizarre.
My mom is a hermit, an introvert, a lone wolf, whatever you want to call it. My aunt is not. Well, not really. She likes to like outside of what I would define as civilization, but otherwise, she’s pretty social. Where my mother is passive, my aunt is aggressive; where mom is contemplative, my aunt is impulsive. You get the idea. They sound very similar on the phone. It was really weird to talk to someone that sounded like my mom, but with a completely different personality. We talked for a bit and over the next series of conversations, she invited me to come for a visit on Thanksgiving.
The Gentle Giant
My uncle Chris is a very nice man. He came and picked me up from the airport. On the hour drive back to their house, we made some small talk and basically got to know one another. He is a soft-spoken man and about 6’2” or 6’3”. He is also very attentive and seemed very eager to make me feel welcome. I had to be careful what I said because it was likely to appear before me. Every morning when I got up, uncle Chris would have made a coffee run for me and presented me with Starbucks. How nice is that? I was talking to Aunt Heather about collecting cooking gadgets and lamenting over the fact that I didn’t have a garlic press. Yeah, he came back from the grocery with one. Hmm. So like I said, I had to be careful what I was talking about otherwise it would have appeared. He was like a genie.
Filling in the Blanks
While the turkey was cooking, aunt Heather and I went through boxes of pictures. It was funny because she didn’t even know half of the people in them. This too was a strange experience, because I was able to see so many pictures of my mother’s family (MY family) that I had never seen. My grandfather died in a car accident the month before I was born. I now have several pictures of him, which is nice. Aunt Heather says I have the same type of skin tone, whatever that means. She asked me if I was ever mistaken for Hispanic or Italian. I am, but not as often as you might think. She had an envelope that contained my grandfather’s effects from the accident. (Still in the same envelope as when it was given to my grandma). It was a little creepy to go through, but I have long since thought of Mom’s side of the family as a little bit “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”, so what the hell, right?
I also heard a lot of stories about the relatives. Some of it was fun, some of it was weird, and some of it was just terrible. I think I am probably still processing some of the information and will be for a long time. I wouldn’t call it life altering, but it doesn’t shed some light on some gray areas in the past. They say knowledge is power, and I feel like I suffered a power surge while I was gone. There is something to be said for remaining ignorant. Ah well. Too late now.
All in all, it was a good visit. I came back with a huge stack of pictures that I need to make copies of for the rest of the family. When I got home there was a message on my answering machine from my mother. She wanted to know how my trip went. That may not seem like a significant event, but my mother has a hate/hate relationship with the phone, so to get her to spontaneously call me probably required a goat being slaughtered somewhere. I figured she was a bit nervous as to whether aunt Heather told any secrets. You know what siblings are like, right? I think we ended that conversation with her feeling a bit relieved and me feeling a bit drained from the tap dancing I was doing. Like I said, I am still processing some of the information and I wasn’t about to spill my guts to her before I am good and ready. So unless one of my relatives that reads this blabs to Mom, I think I’m fine for a while.
Here is an old picture of my Mom and her family. This was taken in June of 1959 in Canada. It was before my uncle came along. My mom is the tall drink of water standing between my grandparents.
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