Riding the Wayback Machine

If you set your wayback machine to go back forty years and went looking for my family, you'd find us living in Southern California. And if you drove, say, forty-five minutes from our house (note: these are 1976 minutes, not 2016 minutes) you'd also find my grandparents' house and, somewhere in that general vicinity, where my Mum's sister and her family lived.

In short, a fairly closely co-located extended family.

So as you might image, holidays we're pretty much a set routine: we'd all troop to the grandparent's house, and the kids would roam around the hill behind their house or raid the game drawer, while the adults did whatever it is the adults did. And then eventually there would be food. 

And if you were really lucky, the holiday you were visiting would not be one of those during which I barfed all over the dinner table. But let's not waste time thinking about those particular events.

Speaking of time, it is, of course, the nature of time to pass. And it is the nature of things, things like death and divorce, to happen. And it is the nature of kids to get older and to go out into the world to find their own colleges and partners and jobs and careers, and pretty soon an event that filled a house and spilled out into the yard doesn't even require putting the leaves in the dining room table anymore. And then, finally, you're the one leaving and the holiday rituals that defined your childhood become a part of your past.

All normal. All healthy. 

But eventually enough time passes that you realize you sort of miss those rituals. And the more you think about it, the more you wish there was an opportunity to cycle back around and relive one of those (hopefully, barf-free holidays) again. And then cancer enters the picture, and the clock starts ticking, and you decide you'll take what you get, 'cause there's not a lot of time left to be choosy.

Sometimes, though, you just have to be lucky. 

Because with luck, and a little bit of effort from a variety of people, you can turn some some sketchy plans for a weekend BBQ, combined with a few email messages, some work schedule alterations, and a couple of last minute plane tickets into a full-blown family reunion...

Or at least a mostly-blown family reunion. There were a few folks who didn't have enough time to make the scramble, and some members of the next generation are already off pursuing partners and college and life, but still... Given the limited planning time available, the fact that as many people turned up as did was kind of amazing.

I couldn't even begin to identify the last time it would've been possible to take a picture like this. 

And, of course, the afternoon was perfect. Aside, perhaps, from the lack of bacon grease in the food and the contemporary preference for brewed beverages over the distilled, it was about as close as you could get to a family holiday circa 1977. 

So here's to all the cousins and second-cousins, and nieces and nephews, and siblings, and friends who scrambled their schedules so they could make it. In particular, here's to my aunt and my cousin who flew out from Tennessee.

The sense I got is that most everyone found value in the afternoon, but I can't really speak for everyone. I can only speak for myself.

For myself, the afternoon meant the world to me.