One Foot on a Banana Peel

My house smells wonderful….if you like honey garlic wings.  I don’t, but I’m making the big crockpot full of them to take to my family reunion today.  I figure they’ll be a big hit there and if not, Tim will be more than happy to take care of the leftovers.  I’m also taking a wonderful salad that includes crumbled bacon, red onions, mandarin oranges, almonds and a homemade vinegarette.  All this effort for something I don’t even want to go to.  So, why go?  It’s a long story.

This is my dad’s family.  My dad was not my biological father, but he did adopt me and never treated me as anything but his own…as did his family.  The thing is, Dad didn’t really keep in close contact with his cousins over the years.  We did some things with them when I was really young, but over the years it was mostly a once a year at the reunion kind of thing.  Add to this the fact that my dad was 16 years older than my mom and it makes him nearly two generations older than me, rather than one.  There are precious few cousins my age who bother to come to the reunion.  We are all so far flung and didn’t grow up knowing each other so we have zero desire to see each other.  I have even less desire because the main topic is geneology and I don’t actually share any blood with these people.  They are not where I came from, but where I ended up.  The reunion is mainly for those of my dad’s generation (and those of us they can nag/guilt into going), which means the average age is close to 80 these days.  So, why, you’re still asking, am I going?

The answer is: my Aunt Peg.  She is my dad’s only sister and has been more like a grandmother to me.  To her, I am my dad’s daughter.  End of story.  I am the one she tells the family stories to because her own sons and grandchildren don’t care and don’t have enough compassion to at least act like they care about something that means so much to her (she is the family’s geneologist and has tracked all the branches of the family on her own).  I am the one she passes family heirlooms on to because her own children would sell them just to get rid of them.  There is not a sentimental bone in their bodies.  My children run errands for her, fetch her mail every day, call her, help her out and care and worry about her, while she rarely hears from her own grandchildren.  Visiting her is one of the very first things my son does when he comes home on break from school.  In short, she’s important to us and doing this one thing makes her very happy.  And it’s not such a big thing, really.  Even my mom, who has remarried, still goes and helps to run the thing, though she is not close to the cousins and her husband hates going, because it matters to my aunt.  Aunt Peg is 81 so she isn’t going to be with us that much longer.  I can stick it out that long.  Besides, she is the driving force behind the reunions which have been going on for over 100 years now.  I have a feeling that the reunion will die with her.  Mom and I can’t imagine anyone else taking it on.