I called Mom and Dad yesterday. Christmas was a quiet one this year, with no festivities, and Dad napping most of the day. My siblings are all coming to the house today with the grandkids ...+ + +
It was the Sunday after Christmas, when we would all get into the car, and make the twenty-mile trip down Route 131, to a farm in the next county just south of Fayetteville, where Mom was born and raised. (We called this "down home," while Dad's parents' living upstate was referred to as "up home.")
Most of the extended family lived in and around Cincinnati back then, and we would converge for the holiday. Looking at the photo, I'm in the front, left of center, ignoring the kid making faces. Also in the picture is my cousin "Tommy." He was four years older than me, and definitely older than everyone else. While the rest of us were being ordered here and there by one of our aunts, for one damn fool thing or another, Tommy just went his own way. I used to think, wow, in four years I can go wherever I want, just like Tommy. (You can't tell from the photo, but that's exactly what I'm thinking about at that moment. Really.)
Four years after this was taken, it was 1968. I was fourteen instead of ten, and while the rest of us were being ordered here and there yada yada yada, Tommy just went his own way. I used to think, wow, in four years I can ... hey, something's not right here.
That's when I had an epiphany. Was it a factor in my leaving Ohio for DC twelve years later? We may never know. But as I look back on those days, and the years that followed, it seems to be impossible for more than three generations to get together in one place. As soon as one branch has grandchildren, it all starts to splinter. I wish there was another way.
(Photo courtesy of The Rosselot Family Archives. Used with my own damn permission.)
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