Tag Archives: family reunion

Blooming and Blossoming Aunts and Uncles

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York photographs a lotus pond thick with lotuses at all stages of life.I’m running out of aunts and uncles. Last week my beautiful, brave Aunt Ilse died. Now I’m down to one aunt and one uncle. Plus another aunt who is really my first cousin once removed. Somehow, while I was mooning over all my cousins’ children’s babies wishing I could hold a grandbaby of my own, I hadn’t noticed the shifting of our family tree.

It used to be there were enough of them to fill every holiday, enough aunts and uncles to have favorites. My cousins’ parents. They weren’t at all like the parents of my friends. No, these adults were mine, as in My Aunt Bope and My Uncle Max. They showed an interest in me; perhaps they were seeking similarities to their siblings. If I did something remarkable, like get married or have kids, they gave me gifts. They gave my children gifts. They always seemed happy to see me. And at each stage of my life, I’ve loved being in their company. But over the years they’ve been disappearing.

There were only a few days between the joyful family event that brought my tribe traveling west to Colorado and then south to Ilse’s funeral in Florida. In between, in Ithaca, I met up with my photographer friends at a lotus pond. We took pictures of young shoots emerging from the muddy pond bottom, new pointy-leaf buds, and unfurling blooms already pinked out or still green like their stalks. Some of the flowers had petals opened wide and falling. There were old dried up, naked pods standing tall or bent downward. The pond was thick with lotuses at all stages of lotus life.

Stages. Changes that happen between life and death. The shifts I’ve made from thinking in terms of my tiny shrinking family (my single child left, one remaining uncle, one of this and one of that…) to considering the whole family forest. My cousins and my cousins’ children are now aunts and uncles. They branch out with partners and step-kids and “extendeds.” Thanks to all their blooming and blossoming, our tribe continues to grow.

And maybe it will be my funeral they gather at next. Or maybe, I’ll soar up into the sea of clouds above the magnificent flowering earth, and be the one to outlive them all.

Save

REPLY TO ROBIN

Surviving a Family Reunion

At the annual family reunion, Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, poses the family behind an empty chair.At the dinner party on the last night of our annual family reunion, I surveyed the dining room for a seat.

The Kids’ Table was bustling with parents settling their young children. I remembered years back, reluctantly leaving my babies at the Kids’ Table and watching from the Parents’ Table as they ate more and laughed more without me hovering over them. My 26-year-old son now sat with his 30-something year-old single cousins at the Kids’ Table, along with adorable almost-2-year-old Tovah.

Glancing over at the Big Table, I thought of my father and long gone white-haired grandparents. And my uncles, Henry and Martin, who sat there not so long ago. It was always the smallest table but it was where the big people sat so we called it the Big Table. It was the table that got served first and was closest to where the food was parked. My favorite cousin, Brigite, was sitting at the Big Table because she was the organizer of the event and both her parents sat at that table.

I was about to take a seat next to my sister and other cousins at the Parents’ Table when Brigite beckoned to me, “Robin, sit here.” Immediately, without a word to my sister, I flew to the empty seat next to Brigite, at the Big Table.
“Thank you so much for inviting me to sit here. I’m so thrilled,” I told her as we waited for our appetizers.
“Robin,” she said, raising an eyebrow and twisting her head to address me directly. “I need to give you a little perspective here.” One of her eyes was wincing. “There’s Number 1.” She pointed to her father, my Uncle Max, who sat across from us staring into space with a smile. “There’s Number 2,” she said, indicating her mother. “Number 3, Number 4.” Our Aunts Bope and Terri. She poked her head in the direction of her older brother, “He’s Number 5.” Then she looked squarely at me with somber eyes.
“I’m 6. And you’re Number 7.”

Three sleepless nights later, after I’d calculated that I was Number 5 on my mother’s much smaller side of the family, I knew it wasn’t a numbers game. It was more like musical chairs. If I could stay fast and strong enough, I might be able to bulldoze my way to the last empty chair whenever the music stopped. I intend to live long, for myself and for my daughter who died. Maybe I will be the one to live to a hundred.
But I will not be the first. Several times during the reunion I heard it said of my Uncle Max (Number 1) that he’s gonna outlive us all.

How do you survive the sad element of loss at family reunions?

REPLY TO ROBIN