Family matters

We spent the afternoon eating and chatting with some cousins we don't get to see often. My mom was the youngest surviving child of 11, so she has a couple of nieces who are almost her age. Her late niece Rita was married to Dave Sinclair and they had 10 children. Their son Dave and my mom form a mutual admiration society that has gone on for many years and takes the strange form of an exchange of lamb-related gifts. (Long story) 

Dave called last week and we set up a time for him to bring his dad and visit. They arrived this afternoon with Chinese takeout and we enjoyed lunch and a couple of hours of reminiscence. The people who remember our Granny and all the aunts and uncles are few and far between, and most of us who are left don't see each other nearly enough. I brought out my iPad and streamed the video that we had done this summer of our old home movies. The videos themselves are not what anyone would call high quality. They are in their third form, having been transferred to VHS in 1987 by one of my students, then to a DVD and a website by Costco this summer.

My father was not the best cameraman, though he loved new electronic gadgets and was always the first to buy things like cameras and tape recorders. He panned quickly, so those with sensitive stomachs sometimes get queasy trying to follow the action. They are home movies, so no sound, none of the voices or chatter that we remember. But there they are, all the people who are gone now. In their prime, they jitterbug, polka and twist in game rooms in celebration of someone's anniversary, someone's birthday. They file into and out of church to share in the joy of a wedding. And though they are blurry and jerky, we watch fascinated and excited and call out, "There's Aunt Mary." "Look at Uncle Mike dance!" "Wow. We were learning the Twist." 

We get to see them again before they were gray, weak, infirm. Before terrible accidents happened, or heart attacks, or big misunderstandings that caused long rifts that were eventually healed. We see ourselves, in crinoline dresses, bow ties, slicked-back hair, tight perms. And it is a wonderful nostalgia, somehow so satisfying in the sharing.

So much more satisfying than much of the faux-nostalgia that somehow creeps into emails and Facebook posts about how much better life was before car seats and bike helmets. In truth, it is amazing that we survived as well as we did, surrounded by the second-hand smoke and tipsy drives that permeated our childhoods. But that survival does not validate those things, and I don't miss them. 

I do miss my Granny and my aunts and uncles, though, and I am always happy to be with someone who shares the memories.