Family
August 1, 2011
Last week was a busy one for me, with family from out-of-town visiting. My brother and his new bride drove down from Toledo, and another brother and his wife and 3-year-old daughter came up from Sidney, Ohio to join my husband and I, my parents, and my two college-aged siblings who still live with Mom and Dad during the summer. In fact, the only people missing from our large family gathering were my brother who lives in South Carolina and his wife. This has been a summer of gatherings. For Memorial Day; for my sister’s high school graduation; for my brother’s wedding, which even my brother and sister-in-law from the south were here to attend. All told there are 13 of us, plus a baby-on-the-way, a boyfriend, and four cats and one fish. (Okay, three of the felines stayed home and the fish died this past week—not by cat-attack, incidentally—but you get the picture.) We can only imagine how many of us there will be when we all start procreating in earnest.
In addition to my family’s gatherings, my husband and I also made a trip down to Alabama to see his kin. One of things my husband and I first appreciated about each other was our understanding of what it is like to live in a big family—mine has six kids, his five. They are not for the faint of heart. They are loud and boisterous, and filled with conflicting personalities. And with the addition of spouses, and nieces and nephews, his family currently totals 16 (plus four dogs and three cats).
 There is rarely a boring moment at either side’s family gatherings, but there is also very little privacy. There are never enough bathrooms to go around, and inevitably someone always plugs a stool. The hot water runs out and someone has to take a cold shower. The thermostat is either set too cold or too hot for someone’s liking. Even with such close proximity, communication is poor, resulting in confusion and frustration about what time dinner was supposed to be or what the plans were for that day. Frequent outings are necessary to relieve the feeling that we’re living on top of each other. By the end of the week, you’re either biting your tongue or verbally sparring with another family member, and at least one wife is giving her husband the silent treatment.
But even with all of these irritations and aggravations, I wouldn’t trade in my or my husband’s family for the world. I wouldn’t give up the sense of camaraderie and the clan-like nature of our families for more space. I wouldn’t trade the love and support, or even the good-natured teasing and embarrassing recounting of childhood stories for a more comfortable temperature setting or easier access to the necessary. And I certainly wouldn’t bargain away the rousing games of Catch Phrase and Banana-Grams, or croquet death matches and late-night absurdest-of-the-absurd movies for the chance to have less family members around to aggravate me.
If I gave up our families, that would mean I would also be giving up on playing Kick-the-Can in the dark, and wiffle-ball tournaments. On sister-in-law hen parties at Starbucks. On hearing my brothers and husband get yelled at by my father when their rough-housing in the pool gets too aggressive and they almost knock the walls down. I would sacrifice the car caravans and the long stretch of dinner tables to accommodate us all. The rioting laughter and heartfelt hugs. Give up the knowledge that, if nothing else, I know that 30 people in the world love me—my families and my husband. (And my cat, but being a feline I suppose her affection is questionable.) |
