To me, part of living the Catholic Faith in the Domestic Church is holding fast to our traditions and Traditions and teaching them well to our children. And face it, a lot of that T(t)radition stuff came to us from our families – extended, immediate and other. When my mother-in-law passed away in late 2002, she had a little bit of money left, and not being a rich woman, at least in a material sense, it wasn’t enough to bequeath a small fortune or even a bit of mad money to each of her 9 children. It was enough however, to make a memory with and my brothers and sisters-in-law set out do to just that by having a big family party on Mom! In a very real sense, that was better! Memories after all last forever, long after money has been spent.
So family traveled from across the country to meet in Frankenmuth, Michigan for this grand event. Considering that only one out of the nine branch of the family couldn’t be there, I thought that a very good turn out. So there we were, the youngest being 1 month old – a new great-grandson! The oldest being Irene in her 50s, the first daughter and in some ways the family matriarch being the beloved maiden Aunt to all of the 30 grandchildren of her parents. In that respect then, I guess we are still a very young family with several decades of memory making left in us.
Izzy played with her first cousin once removed who is also a 4 year old girl. Cousin shmuzin, they only know that in that sea of adults and boys (and I mean lots and lots of boys- the family is in no risk of vanishing from the planet any time soon!) that they have each other to giggle with, color and do stuff that little girls do. The boys 14 and under between my family and my closest sister-in-law, Rita, filled one table. There were 7 of them and then went through 6 huge pitchers of Pepsi and ate fried chicken like it was going out of style.
It was nice to sit across from my niece and nephew Patrick and Katie and hear what was going on in their lives. I sat next to my niece’s new husband and listened to their excitement about the new baby coming in November. Yep, I saw the ultrasound pictures! That her father, MY brother-in-law is going to be a grandpa sort of blows my mind, although not as much as the realization that this young lady was the newborn baby in my wedding photos!! When did she grow up? Overall I’d say that my brothers and sisters –in-law did wonderful jobs in raising their children. The older nieces and nephews I spoke to have become very interesting, respectful and fun adults to talk to.
On Sunday we worshipped together as a family. Uh… more on that later, but the important thing is we were there as family.
Rita’s kids and my kids as well as Patrick and Katie got to spend some quality time together later in the weekend. They made up some games of tag and played basketball. Patrick has a cute perspective on it here. I just watched and hoped the cousins would always try to be there for each other, that they would always try to find ways to get together and keep that family connection. Maybe that started this weekend.
We also did the cemetery thing. My mother and father-in-law have a lovely pink granite stone with their names and dates. My father-in-law also has the special military foot stone to honor his service. We found my husband’s grandparents and two of his uncles too. Someone had planted flowers at all of these sites – they are being well cared for and loved, which made me feel kind of sad for the stones that looked like they had no visitors any more. One stone fell over and my brother-in-law John helped me try to set it right. There were zillions of ants swarming over where the stone laid but that didn’t deter John from trying to set the stone straight. When it was clear it wouldn’t stand on its base any more John set it in front of the base instead of behind it and I was grateful for that. I wondered what was behind the stone or in the ground that made it possible for all of those ants to live and thrive.
That evening I did get to spend sometime with my goddaughter – well with her parents anyway. We caught up on each other’s lives and it was great to see them. My god-daughter will be a senior in high school next year but this summer she is going to spend 4 weeks in SanFrancisco by herself for further training in dance and choreography. That scares me, but I am a fully admitted worry wart.
Finally yesterday, after saying our goodbyes to all, we wandered over to find my grandparents graves in a different cemetery in a different part of the county. I never understood why my grandparents picked their grave site. I remember as a child going out to look at the plots when they purchased them. It’s a pretty site but it was no where near where we lived even then. It’s not a Catholic cemetery either, although there was lots of Christian statuary and symbols throughout. I don’t get to their grave sites very often. After I had the baby’s grave site to care for it started to bother me that I had neglected theirs even when I lived in that state. Part of that was when my grandmother died I wasn’t a very good driver yet and I don’t think I trusted myself to find the place and get back in one piece. By the time my grandfather and uncle died I was already in Ohio.
Many times I would go out to Raphael’s grave and see other graves that looked like they were never visited and I wondered if they had been forgotten, or if the nearest family was also dead? I didn’t want to judge. I loved my grandparents and my uncle very much, but I hadn’t been there in years.
So we made it a point to go on Memorial Day as we were leaving for home. This cemetery is HUGE. They had 5 people on staff to help visitors find the graves or their love ones. Apparently my folks had died before they had a computer system and the worker had to go look in some archaic card file in the back before she could give me their grave sites. Grandpa just died 18 years ago – how things have changed!
We found the section and wandered round in it for about 10 minutes before we found their site. The stones were muddy and overgrown. My husband cut the grass and dirt back and we used our Kool Aid cooler to carry water back and forth to clean them off. After much effort they looked better although not as clean as I would have liked. I think I have decided that there is some merit to having an all granite stone – bronze is much harder to wipe down!. We put some flowers in a vase for my grandparents and some decorations for my uncle who doesn’t have a vase. We prayed, I cried and then we left.
Overall, I think we had a good weekend. I hope my kids got a taste of what it is they were born to, what it means to be part of family and cultivate long-term friendships, and how our faith is the connecting fiber to all of this, past, present and future.
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