Family
Just back from a different lunch break.
There were some of my father’s relatives, from his father’s branch of family; a distant uncle died a few weeks ago, and the widow with her daughter and another man (her son? The daughter’s boyfriend? God knows) came up to see us for it was a loooooong time since we last met. I didn’t remember any of them, and had a vague memory of seeing them, some fifteen years ago, at their house up in the mountains on the lake of Garda, near an ancient mill, which was still visited by schools (I don’t know if it is still a visiting place, now. The old woman – a distant relative too, who was almost 100 years old when I met her – died a few years ago).
Anyway, it was sweet, somehow.
We sat at the table in this bad restaurant (which serves truck drivers, mostly, and the food is…no, not good at all, but hey), and we were all chatting away before ordering, when the old woman started to cry silently; my father’s cousin (the son of his father’s sister, who was also there) stood up and went consoling her, and when his mother asked what was going on he said that she was crying because it was the first time we were together without her husband. The woman being quite old too – I guess she’s more than 90 – made me think about how terrible it must be, to see the world crumbling around you, and maybe even realising that the end is not too far away. It was sad.
We were eating and chatting – me, I was listening and thinking that I haven’t got my gym kit with me, so after work I’ll have to run home, prepare my bag, run to the gym and…run more! – and as they were talking, the daughter also cried a bit, for her father’s recent death. This brought an immense sadness upon me. And I thought of the moment I arrived at the parking lot, with my father crossing the street to show me where I could park, and how smiling and happy he was to have us all together then.
And then there was the moment, before we ordered any food, when he went to his car to get my brother’s id, a photocopy he has because he must go and get some certificate for my brother from the university he studied at, and after that there was the moment when he opened his wallet (a very American thing, this, because I don’t know many people who go around carrying pictures in their wallets) and showed some more pictures, and the wallet came up to me to show to my cousin sitting next to me.
The pictures were three id photos: one was my mum, in black and white, with curly hair (I guess it dates back to 1972, because I have seen pixies of her with that hair style before. And – it was a wig: she has the straightest hair ever seen on earth); the other two were of my brother – and of me. When we were, oh, I can say about 7 (me) and five.
This, and the fact that I was the youngest person of the table (of the restaurant, as far as I could tell!), which is something that doesn’t happen anymore (new year’s eve, the guy who joined us – friend of a friend – was asking what year we were of, and Cris started saying “she’s from 1984, she’s from 1983”, etc, etc. The guy himself was from 1981. Then they came up to me and… “’78”, I said smiling, knowing that it was somehow funny because it sounded so old…and homonymous friend said with a smile “oh, don’t worry, it sounds wise and cool, not old”. Sweet of her), but I have sidetracked.
I was saying that the pictures, and me being the youngest there, and the feeling that there was somebody missing (the old woman’s husband, my father’s step-mother who died a few months ago too), and all the talking of brothers and mothers and sons, and all that, it felt melancholic and bitter-sweet.
I haven’t expressed myself very well.
I am one who broods over the past, and my family history on my father’s side is quite blurred: grandfather was born in Germany after the first WW. Moved here with his family when he was about 2. married, had a son who died, had my father. I don’t know anything of my great-grandparents except their surnames and we have a bad picture at home. My mother’s side is just as fragmentary. Also, my father’s mother died when he was one, and his father re-married to the grand-mother who died in October; my mum’s parents are both dead, from 1972 and 1994. My father’s father is also dead, since 1972 too. I have a cousin I haven’t seen in years, whose parents (my mum’s brother and his wife) have been dead for 15 years now. Distant cousins somewhere, whom we used to meet once or twice a year but now we don’t hear from anymore (distant as in family relationship and as in space distance).
So when I hear of family reunions with dozens of cousins, and husbands and wives, and daughters and sons, and grandparents everywhere, I always wonder what it is like, because I have never experienced it.
It must be why I always think that in the impossible event of me married, I will have four children at least, and I hope my partner will be in a crowded family, so there will be lots of cousins and aunts and all that, and it will be fun to see them grow all together.
But then again…maybe in my next life. The one after being a penguin, that is.
There were some of my father’s relatives, from his father’s branch of family; a distant uncle died a few weeks ago, and the widow with her daughter and another man (her son? The daughter’s boyfriend? God knows) came up to see us for it was a loooooong time since we last met. I didn’t remember any of them, and had a vague memory of seeing them, some fifteen years ago, at their house up in the mountains on the lake of Garda, near an ancient mill, which was still visited by schools (I don’t know if it is still a visiting place, now. The old woman – a distant relative too, who was almost 100 years old when I met her – died a few years ago).
Anyway, it was sweet, somehow.
We sat at the table in this bad restaurant (which serves truck drivers, mostly, and the food is…no, not good at all, but hey), and we were all chatting away before ordering, when the old woman started to cry silently; my father’s cousin (the son of his father’s sister, who was also there) stood up and went consoling her, and when his mother asked what was going on he said that she was crying because it was the first time we were together without her husband. The woman being quite old too – I guess she’s more than 90 – made me think about how terrible it must be, to see the world crumbling around you, and maybe even realising that the end is not too far away. It was sad.
We were eating and chatting – me, I was listening and thinking that I haven’t got my gym kit with me, so after work I’ll have to run home, prepare my bag, run to the gym and…run more! – and as they were talking, the daughter also cried a bit, for her father’s recent death. This brought an immense sadness upon me. And I thought of the moment I arrived at the parking lot, with my father crossing the street to show me where I could park, and how smiling and happy he was to have us all together then.
And then there was the moment, before we ordered any food, when he went to his car to get my brother’s id, a photocopy he has because he must go and get some certificate for my brother from the university he studied at, and after that there was the moment when he opened his wallet (a very American thing, this, because I don’t know many people who go around carrying pictures in their wallets) and showed some more pictures, and the wallet came up to me to show to my cousin sitting next to me.
The pictures were three id photos: one was my mum, in black and white, with curly hair (I guess it dates back to 1972, because I have seen pixies of her with that hair style before. And – it was a wig: she has the straightest hair ever seen on earth); the other two were of my brother – and of me. When we were, oh, I can say about 7 (me) and five.
This, and the fact that I was the youngest person of the table (of the restaurant, as far as I could tell!), which is something that doesn’t happen anymore (new year’s eve, the guy who joined us – friend of a friend – was asking what year we were of, and Cris started saying “she’s from 1984, she’s from 1983”, etc, etc. The guy himself was from 1981. Then they came up to me and… “’78”, I said smiling, knowing that it was somehow funny because it sounded so old…and homonymous friend said with a smile “oh, don’t worry, it sounds wise and cool, not old”. Sweet of her), but I have sidetracked.
I was saying that the pictures, and me being the youngest there, and the feeling that there was somebody missing (the old woman’s husband, my father’s step-mother who died a few months ago too), and all the talking of brothers and mothers and sons, and all that, it felt melancholic and bitter-sweet.
I haven’t expressed myself very well.
I am one who broods over the past, and my family history on my father’s side is quite blurred: grandfather was born in Germany after the first WW. Moved here with his family when he was about 2. married, had a son who died, had my father. I don’t know anything of my great-grandparents except their surnames and we have a bad picture at home. My mother’s side is just as fragmentary. Also, my father’s mother died when he was one, and his father re-married to the grand-mother who died in October; my mum’s parents are both dead, from 1972 and 1994. My father’s father is also dead, since 1972 too. I have a cousin I haven’t seen in years, whose parents (my mum’s brother and his wife) have been dead for 15 years now. Distant cousins somewhere, whom we used to meet once or twice a year but now we don’t hear from anymore (distant as in family relationship and as in space distance).
So when I hear of family reunions with dozens of cousins, and husbands and wives, and daughters and sons, and grandparents everywhere, I always wonder what it is like, because I have never experienced it.
It must be why I always think that in the impossible event of me married, I will have four children at least, and I hope my partner will be in a crowded family, so there will be lots of cousins and aunts and all that, and it will be fun to see them grow all together.
But then again…maybe in my next life. The one after being a penguin, that is.
posted by Peggy @ 3:55 PM
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