There was a loss in my family last month. My father’s older brother, died of Parkinson’s coupled with Covid. My aunt and cousins chose not have a funeral, so it’s kind of on everyone in the larger family to sort out their feelings separately.
While I feel bad for my cousins and my uncle’s wife, I don’t feel sad myself, more regretful. We have a very large family and I haven’t spent much time with most of them over the last two decades.
My father was number two of nine siblings and I have thirteen* first cousins on the one side alone. As a kid, everyone was in Oregon, and we’d meet up for Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas as well as weeks spent together over the summers. After my grandparents passed, everyone kind of moved on. The scattering now extends over multiple states. Annual get togethers became replaced by occasional weddings, graduations and funerals. Also, several divorces and remarriages further confused the family links. As many of the older generation pass on, multiple new grand and great grandchildren have been born. Not everyone is on everyone else’s holiday letter and birth announcement list. I recently found out about the existence of my older cousin’s daughter who has kids about the age of my kids. Now we’re trading daily parenting experiences on Facebook.
We’re not all close, but now with the passing of my father’s eldest male relative, some old emotions have been stirred up. Many of my links to my father’s side family were shattered after my Dad’s death in 2004. Lots of relatives descended upon our home for his funeral service and then took off the next day. The ones calling most after that were my father’s youngest sister and my one female cousin who lost her mother just two months earlier. We’re trauma bonded by our parents’ simultaneous passing.
The rest of them, visited his grave site more than they visited us in our homes. It is like our branch of the family died with him and some of them died with him. Understand it’s not intentional, but emotional. I wanted to visit my uncle in Montana too, but I also didn’t want to disinter my father’s memories by seeing my uncle’s similar face and hear his sadness about the loss of his brother.
The speech my uncle gave at my wedding barely included me at all because he was so focused on the distant past. The last time I saw him in person was at another cousin’s high school graduation party. He must have been experiencing some early onset of memory issues because his conversation with me was scattered and unsettling. That was also the trip where I met another surprise cousin for the first time in my life, hence my continued uncertainty as to how many relatives I actually have.
To be honest, family get togethers either in-person or virtually, are often as painful as they are comforting. There are some long standing beefs between relations and any meetup lasting over a few hours often includes the airing of grievances. One of my earliest childhood memories was my Dad and his sister arguing and cousin and I being separated in the ensuing fallout. Christmas wasn’t a complete holiday without one or two vocal blowups from the grownups.
Moving forward, I am trying to make a point of staying in touch my own siblings and making sure my kids get to know their uncles, aunts and cousins. I am hoping the connections are less confrontational and more affirming. It’s also not easy to get out to Texas and Georgia often. Even with my brother living on the other side of the Willamette River we barely get together as much as we’d like. It takes time and travel to keep an extended family together, but I am still motivated to keep up connections with cousins, nieces and nephews. The relationships we’ve maintained, I value because it’s important to know where you come from and have someone around to celebrate achievements and milestones. In an age of virtual, it’s nice to make time for some real.
