Family Matters

Monday, I mailed out a card for my great aunt’s 90th birthday yesterday. It’s not every day you pick out a 90th birthday card for someone. Trust me, there’s not many on offer to buy either. There was a sense of sadness in this act because my great aunt is the only "great-" anything left on my mother’s side of the family. I should look at it with reverence and happiness, and trust me, on so many levels I do. But, I can’t help but have a thin layer of melancholy when I think about it.

Several weeks ago, while at my cousin’s house, I stared into a group portrait of my maternal grandmother's parents with all of their children, their children's spouses, and their first grandchild. Only two in the picture are alive today - my great aunt and my mother’s cousin (which would make her my second cousin). I remember almost all of these people when they were alive, save for my great-grandfather, who passed seven months prior to my arrival into the world.

Sometimes, I also think of my paternal grandmother and I feel sadness. She is the only grandparent I have left, and that has an impact on how I view family. First, there are the most obvious reasons; you don’t want the people you love very much to leave you. Second, not only is it hard to let go of family members, it’s also hard to let go of time. Lastly, there are threads which hold a family together, thick richly woven ones and grandparents are almost always holding the reigns to them. Once they pass, the rest of the family is left to pick up where the grandparents left off. It becomes like a new administration, complete with shifting of power, shifting of balances, and shifting of allegiances.

Another thought I had is that family works somewhat like a tier system of generations, and it’s sometimes hard making that depressing but natural move up those tiers. Once my maternal grandfather passed, there was a brief period of shifting. Who was going to head the family now? We now had to make adjustments. With a tier system, there is deep comfort being part of the youngest group (thus, the last tier) who looks up to the older groups, no matter how difficult it may be. I think part of this comfort is the memories that come with your generational place in the family tree. With those memories, remains a longing for things to remain as they are, not to change one bit. To keep the good old days. Does that make sense?

Now? My cousins, who once looked up at the older folks, have jumped a tier and have another generation who is now doing the looking up. It's a constant reminder that unlike photos, time doesn't freeze.