Family.

This is the story of how one bloodline branches into a hundred different rivers.

I am one of three children.  Neither I nor my brothers have children; when my brothers get older, I suspect this will change.

My mother is the youngest of seven children.  Two of her siblings have no children.  The other four have eight children among them.  Of those eight children, only one does not have kids.  Another has only one child, but will eventually have more.  The remaining six have at least two children each.  Two of those children have children of their own.  This means that I have cousins, first cousins once removed, and first cousins twice removed on my mother’s side.  It also means that some of my first cousins’ children have second cousins.  It means that within my lifetime, my first cousins once and twice removed will have second, third, and maybe fourth cousins, if I am blessed with old age.

My mother became an aunt at the age of four.  It would all be impossible otherwise.

My maternal grandmother had no siblings.  Well, she grew up thinking her mother and her aunt were her siblings.  My great-grandmother was only a child when my grandmother was born in 1920, and at that time, a teenage pregnancy was an embarassment.  My grandmother learned the truth of her lineage when she was fifteen, became pregnant, got married, and became her own adult.

My maternal grandfather had at least one sibling.  I know little about him and nothing about his family.  I vaguely remember meeting his sister when I was maybe three, maybe four.

My father is the oldest of three children.  On his side, I have seven cousins and one first cousin once removed.  My paternal grandfather was one of maybe seven, maybe eight children; I can’t keep track of all my great uncles and aunts.  All of his siblings have several children and grandchildren, and some have great-grandchildren.  My paternal grandmother is one of five children.  One of her brothers died young; the others all have had children and grandchildren.  I have cousins, second cousins, first cousins twice removed, great aunts and uncles that I could not identify in a crowd.  Amazingly, they know all about my life.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, I lived in the house in which I was conceived.  I tried not to dwell upon it.  Twenty-five years before I moved in, my parents rented the downstairs apartment.  My mother became pregnant; my parents got married.  At some point during my mother’s pregnancy, she watched my father build the wall in the backyard.  It began raining, and my 22-year-old father pushed boulders uphill on his own.  My mother cried for him to stop.  He didn’t.  The wall is still there.  It’s held up well.  My father was strong then, and younger than me.  My father, back then, was younger than my little brother is now.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, I went to the local grocery store to buy some things.  I was dressed haphazardly, makeup-less, disheveled a bit, and so I was surprised when I was embraced and kissed upon my exit.  My Great Aunt Maggie, standing outside and talking with her neighbor, had seen me exiting before I even knew I was leaving the building.

“How are you, my darling?” she asked, and I returned her embrace.  I was no longer shaken.

I was at home.

I wonder how many people with my same surname will one day show no recognition of my existence.  I want them to feel at home somewhere, too.

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Posted in Present, Tail Chasing