October 17, 2007

• For most of our history on this earth, extended families — clans, tribes — have lived within shouting distance of each other.
  Grandmothers,
  grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers,
  fathers, daughters, sons — their lives lived out near one another,
  intertwined in a number of ways.
  A young wife, troubled about her
  fussy baby's teething, could just walk down the road and ask her mother
  or her grandmother for advice.
  An only child didn't want for playmates, because just over the hill were two or three housefuls of cousins ready for adventure.
  A farmer who needed help getting his crop in could call on his brothers and uncles and cousins, knowing they would help him.
  A
  housewife, lonely during long gray winter afternoons, could get
  together with the other women in the family to quilt while they visited
  by the fireside.
  A man could talk things over with his brothers and his dad on their way to the woods, or sitting on a creek bank.
  Many
  hands made light work when it was time to get crops in, build houses
  and barns, quilt winter covers, put up vegetables from the garden, or
  tend to a sick loved one.
  I believe this world of ours, where
  families are so often cut apart and scattered, suffers from the loss of
  this good, time-honored way of living close to our kin.
  When Mama
  was growing up in Mississippi in the Thirties and Forties, her mother's
  mother lived right next door, and her daddy's mother lived five miles
  away. She had aunts, uncles and cousins galore to enrich her life.
  When
  Daddy was growing up, he and his mother lived with her parents, and all
  four of his mother's siblings lived nearby. His uncles and grandfather
  took him fishing out on the Gulf, and taught him about boats and
  airplanes and things that a fatherless little boy needed to know.
  During
  my growing-up years, our Navy family moved here and there across the
  United States, usually far away from our kinfolks in down South. When
  we were able to spend a few months in Mississippi, my sisters and I
  thought it was wonderful to live with my mother's parents, with our
  cousins right down the street. Granddaddy would take his riding on his
  big black horse, and let us drive his golf cart. Our adored cousin Beau
  taught us how to catch a football, and urged us to climb trees and do
  outdoor things that a houseful of little girls needed to be pushed to
  do.
  When I was a young mother, I lived in my mother's hometown, even
  though she was living far away in northern Virginia. I had the blessing
  of having my grandmother and aunt nearby, and I got very close to them.
  When my first son was born, the older women were there for me to ask
  all the scared-young-mother questions: "What do you do about diaper
  rash?" "How high does the baby's fever need to be before I call the
  doctor?" "He's coughing his head off — what should I do?"
  For just a
  handful of years later in my adult life, I lived in the same town —
  Sarasota —  with my mother, my dad, two of my three sisters, and my
  brother.
  Being close enough to run over to a sister's house to just
  say "hey," or to Mama's for a cup of coffee and a piece of lemon icebox
  pie, or to sit by Daddy's pool and visit with him, was a fresh delight
  that never got stale. I overjoyed to be able to be at the hospital when
  my youngest nephew was born, and to celebrate his first birthday and
  first steps.
  We all shared Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas
  get-togethers, and lots of birthday parties. For a woman who had lived
  so far away from her family most of her life, it was a rich, joyful
  time to treasure.
  I love our new life here in the Ozarks, and am so
  thankful for my husband and my mother-in-law and my son being here, but
  sometimes I really miss living close to my extended family.
  My
  grandparents and parents have all crossed the River, and now that there
  are only the five of us children left, I feel more keenly how vital it
  is for us to keep in touch and stay close. I long for our kids to know
  and love each other, now that they're scattered from Colorado to
  Washington, DC., to south Florida.
  Sometimes I envy my friends whose
  sisters all live within an hour's drive, who can run down the street
  and have lunch with their mothers every day, whose children all live
  close enough for weekend visits.
  If most of your kinfolks live
  nearby, be grateful. I know they get on your nerves sometimes, because
  we all do that to each other, especially the people we love most, but
  treasure your time with them.
  And as for me, I'm fixin' to start planning a family reunion in the Ozarks.

  By Celia DeWoody
  Published Oct. 17, 2007
  Harrison Daily Times, Harrison, Ark.
  Copyright Harrison Daily Times, 2007
  
  
  
  
  

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