Do you and yours often attend family get-togethers?
My paternal grandmother’s kitchen was such a place.
Between my father’s siblings and their various children, the smaller than average kitchen sported thirty-three individuals, ages from a few weeks old to mid-seventies.
And when my grandparents had their siblings over?
Oy!
Because they would bring their children’s children and children’s children’s children.
Such gatherings of the clans most often occurred late Spring through early Fall.
Then cars and pickups would line the street.
Thank goodness the only people who lived on the street were my relatives.
Sometimes and not often, family rivalries would surface.
As a child, these fascinated me.
As an adult, they fascinate me.
Except now there’s not enough people left in my family for such to occur.
I reach out to my cousins, rarely get a response.
My life followed a different path than theirs.
Doesn’t leave much to talk about as we have little in common.
Except gatherings around my grandmother’s kitchen table.