A Road Less Travelled

 Coming back to my grandparent’s house this time I particularly noticed certain ‘historical’ items. I’d already explained some of them to Gabrielle when she visited with us a few months ago. I told her that the back bedroom was always where the older cousins stayed when they worked on the farm, which particular room was in my mind ‘the grown-ups room’ or usually ‘Uncle Kevin and Aunt Mary’s room’ (I have still rarely entered this room), and which one we piled all the younger cousins into. I noticed everything was smaller than it used to be.

This time I perused the cross-stitching on the wall which contained important family dates and the names of all the grandchildren. I remembered how they used to be segmented at the time– Mike and Jen I’d barely met, so they were the really old cousins (a little older than Theresa and Donna, I think). Eva, Robin and Roi were old, but not old enough to have moved far away (in other words, mid-to-late teens). I remember liking Robin, though not interacting with her a lot (since, after all, she was old). Chenel was usually filed with them, though she drifted down to our group during certain age ranges. Then came the three of us who were the same age: Kristin, Charis, and me. I saw Kristin most often and frequently fought with her. We discovered one time that neither of us had ever fought with Charis, except for one argument Kristin had with her when they were three. Then came the cousins who were in Merrianna’s age range: Lisa, Matthew, Ethan and Melody. I think to some part of my mind they will always be three year olds running around the farm.

I glanced over a collection of pictures of us ten to fifteen years ago–the way I remember us. Then I walked downstairs to find that my small, slightly annoying male cousins were men wearing suits and ties, and carrying them off quite well. My little sister was taller than me by an inch or two. In fact, I think all of those little three year old girls might have been taller than me. Perhaps most disconcerting of all, Kristin and I did not have a single argument the entire day. The world has changed and become a strange place indeed…

We headed off to the church and most of us cousins who were there practiced “I’ll Fly Away” to sing during the funeral. Roi played the guitar, and all of us, who hadn’t been all in the same place for at least ten years, managed to pull of a decent rendition of the song.

Later, after the funeral, some of us stood around in the kitchen while my mother offered homemade goat cheese to everyone who passed by. I saw my mother’s gestures and expressions on her sisters, and wondered if I have the same ones. I watched my cousins flow through the kitchen, listened to the random, mundane chatter about what large amounts of food we’d been given and how good such and such a cake was and how such and such a distant relative had chatted with so and so at the funeral. I mused on cousins, and considered that perhaps if I had managed to go ten years without realizing I missed them, they could have decency to stay away so I never did have to realize it. Or we could just go with the plan Kristin and I agreed on: Someone needs to get married soon so we all have a wedding to go to and get to see each other again.