Family Reunions
So tomorrow is our annual family reunion. I have not been to one since the year before Mom died. She was my last and only connection to our extended family. I don’t say that to be disrespectful. Our extended family only got together once a year. The only exception to that is if someone died. Otherwise...crickets. There was never any warm and fuzzy phone calls. No lunches with anyone. No checking in with people to see how they were doing. It’s just how things have always been. Which is at odds with how Mom and Memaw was towards us. Maybe that is why they both were so different than the rest of the family, more warm, more nurturing.
I always felt as though my grandmother’s family were looked at as outsiders to the proper Southern Baptists that comprise my extended family. You see, when my grandmother was a very young woman, she moved to Cincinnati when she found out she was pregnant. In the 1940s being pregnant and unwed was looked at much like people look at transgendered people using the bathroom in our time. It was frowned upon. It was scandalous. It was fertile soil in which to plant tons of gossip. So she moved away. She created her own life up north. She thrived, married someone, and had two more kids, one of which was my mother. My grandmother was an oddity in her time for being so independent and not caring what other people thought of her. She lived her life in one direction and she did it proudly.
I have no doubt that is why I approach life in the same “fuck all of yaw” attitude. I believe it is why my mom and my brother have all lived our lives in a way that makes sense to us, even if others may view us as unconventional black sheep. It is why we have thrived, even if we do so by coloring outside of the lines.
I think back to all the different family reunions and see how outside of everyone we always were. We didn’t brag about material things (mostly because we did not have a ton of material things). We didn’t go to snobby Maryville City schools. We were not Southern Baptist. Mom even married a Catholic, so double scandal on us, haha. We surely didn’t drive luxury vehicles. We were simple in what we owned and yet so rich in emotional treasures, which always seemed to me to be the opposite of almost everyone else. Oh, I don’t mean to imply every single person was like that, because that was not the case. My great aunt Mildred Rena and their families were always there for us then and now.
But, I will miss the food for sure.
I always felt as though my grandmother’s family were looked at as outsiders to the proper Southern Baptists that comprise my extended family. You see, when my grandmother was a very young woman, she moved to Cincinnati when she found out she was pregnant. In the 1940s being pregnant and unwed was looked at much like people look at transgendered people using the bathroom in our time. It was frowned upon. It was scandalous. It was fertile soil in which to plant tons of gossip. So she moved away. She created her own life up north. She thrived, married someone, and had two more kids, one of which was my mother. My grandmother was an oddity in her time for being so independent and not caring what other people thought of her. She lived her life in one direction and she did it proudly.
I have no doubt that is why I approach life in the same “fuck all of yaw” attitude. I believe it is why my mom and my brother have all lived our lives in a way that makes sense to us, even if others may view us as unconventional black sheep. It is why we have thrived, even if we do so by coloring outside of the lines.
I think back to all the different family reunions and see how outside of everyone we always were. We didn’t brag about material things (mostly because we did not have a ton of material things). We didn’t go to snobby Maryville City schools. We were not Southern Baptist. Mom even married a Catholic, so double scandal on us, haha. We surely didn’t drive luxury vehicles. We were simple in what we owned and yet so rich in emotional treasures, which always seemed to me to be the opposite of almost everyone else. Oh, I don’t mean to imply every single person was like that, because that was not the case. My great aunt Mildred Rena and their families were always there for us then and now.
But, I will miss the food for sure.
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