That was lovely and it stirred my feelers in good and not so good ways I’m still trying to unpack. I’ll be out of town from Wednesday through Sunday with a super busy today and tomorrow getting ready but here I sit writing a response instead of addressing my tasks for this afternoon thanks to my head now being filled with thoughts that have no place to go.
Reading some of your nostalgic feelings from childhood and times past, a lot of it sounds to me like some idyllic Norman Rockwell painting or Brady Bunch scenario because it differs so wildly from my childhood memories and experiences. Not saying I don’t have fond remembrances of favorite cousins and whatnot but gatherings of more than maybe two family groups at a time out of six on my mother’s side are not part of my recollections and I can think of only one instance I was a part of where multiple families gathered on my dad’s side. My birth parents separated when I was in kindergarten and my dad tried but I was never very familiar with his side of the family and in the times I was involved, I was the weirdo outsider that never really belonged.
My mom had five sisters and was the baby of her family. They all married and scattered in different directions except one who stayed local providing nearly all of my extended family connections. When we first moved from Ohio to Arizona in 1961 it was this one sister, who was closest to my mom’s age moved out west to join us several years later along with my grandparents so when we did get together it was with one aunt and uncle, four cousins and grandma and grandpa. That was a big family gathering to me.
I did occasionally visit my dad who lived in California at this time and he had a sister living close, my aunt Dotha but her kids, my cousins were young adults and there wasn’t any connection there and I never saw any of my dad’s other family ever again.
My grandparents, born in the 1880s and 1890s passed away when I was 12 and 13 and it was also about this time, I completely ended my already strained relationship with my father because he just couldn’t come to terms with who I was so needless to say, big family gatherings were not part of my picture beyond my aunt and uncle and their kids whom I had mostly grown up with that just accepted my differences.
In spite of what may sound like a tragedy to some with big connected extended families, siblings and multiple generations, I don’t really feel like I missed much but sometimes I think a few of my adult behaviors are influenced by these experiences. I was a deeply troubled kid that threw up hardened protective walls anyway and think a broadened familial experience would have only driven me further into isolation. I was loved and cared for by the people that mattered to me which was enough even if it was only a small circle.
Between 15 and 18 while I was still living with my mom and stepdad through high school, even connections with my aunt, uncle and cousins began to wane not because of what I was going through but because they moved too far away to see regularly and after that, I did not see any of them again until I was 25 at my mom’s funeral in 1980. I have neither seen nor heard from any of them since.
However, thanks to my mom’s efforts during her last year, she did track down my dad and patched things up between him and I even though we hadn’t spoken for over ten years. We stayed in contact and visited several times which ended up with my dad seeking therapy because parents want to blame themselves when their kids don’t turn out they way they expected but things were cool and he even got to meet my husband a couple times, which is something my mom never got to do, and they got along well. However, when I got divorced in 1997, it really pissed him off or something and we fell out of contact. I learned a few years later he passed away.
I’m sure to some it may sound like I’m emotionally deficient, broken or disconnected and in some ways I probably am but that is not how I see things from my perspective. While I may not be as warm and cuddly as some because of the walls put up for my own survival while young may still exist to some degree, it doesn’t mean I do not love or am loved but it does mean by very few. I’m good with that and while my experiences may be limited those that I have leave me fulfilled and rewarded.
So after blathering on about my life and family and such, I’ll finish addressing one of the notions pondered in the OP. I don’t really think stores being open is part of the decline in big family get togethers but rather just a symptom of fast-paced modern times where a text has replaced conversation, families have become more geographically diverse and the world that many of us older folks grew up in has become unrecognizable or not what were raised to expect.
Now I’d better get busy or tomorrow is going to be a mad rush.
Reading some of your nostalgic feelings from childhood and times past, a lot of it sounds to me like some idyllic Norman Rockwell painting or Brady Bunch scenario because it differs so wildly from my childhood memories and experiences. Not saying I don’t have fond remembrances of favorite cousins and whatnot but gatherings of more than maybe two family groups at a time out of six on my mother’s side are not part of my recollections and I can think of only one instance I was a part of where multiple families gathered on my dad’s side. My birth parents separated when I was in kindergarten and my dad tried but I was never very familiar with his side of the family and in the times I was involved, I was the weirdo outsider that never really belonged.
My mom had five sisters and was the baby of her family. They all married and scattered in different directions except one who stayed local providing nearly all of my extended family connections. When we first moved from Ohio to Arizona in 1961 it was this one sister, who was closest to my mom’s age moved out west to join us several years later along with my grandparents so when we did get together it was with one aunt and uncle, four cousins and grandma and grandpa. That was a big family gathering to me.
I did occasionally visit my dad who lived in California at this time and he had a sister living close, my aunt Dotha but her kids, my cousins were young adults and there wasn’t any connection there and I never saw any of my dad’s other family ever again.
My grandparents, born in the 1880s and 1890s passed away when I was 12 and 13 and it was also about this time, I completely ended my already strained relationship with my father because he just couldn’t come to terms with who I was so needless to say, big family gatherings were not part of my picture beyond my aunt and uncle and their kids whom I had mostly grown up with that just accepted my differences.
In spite of what may sound like a tragedy to some with big connected extended families, siblings and multiple generations, I don’t really feel like I missed much but sometimes I think a few of my adult behaviors are influenced by these experiences. I was a deeply troubled kid that threw up hardened protective walls anyway and think a broadened familial experience would have only driven me further into isolation. I was loved and cared for by the people that mattered to me which was enough even if it was only a small circle.
Between 15 and 18 while I was still living with my mom and stepdad through high school, even connections with my aunt, uncle and cousins began to wane not because of what I was going through but because they moved too far away to see regularly and after that, I did not see any of them again until I was 25 at my mom’s funeral in 1980. I have neither seen nor heard from any of them since.
However, thanks to my mom’s efforts during her last year, she did track down my dad and patched things up between him and I even though we hadn’t spoken for over ten years. We stayed in contact and visited several times which ended up with my dad seeking therapy because parents want to blame themselves when their kids don’t turn out they way they expected but things were cool and he even got to meet my husband a couple times, which is something my mom never got to do, and they got along well. However, when I got divorced in 1997, it really pissed him off or something and we fell out of contact. I learned a few years later he passed away.
I’m sure to some it may sound like I’m emotionally deficient, broken or disconnected and in some ways I probably am but that is not how I see things from my perspective. While I may not be as warm and cuddly as some because of the walls put up for my own survival while young may still exist to some degree, it doesn’t mean I do not love or am loved but it does mean by very few. I’m good with that and while my experiences may be limited those that I have leave me fulfilled and rewarded.
So after blathering on about my life and family and such, I’ll finish addressing one of the notions pondered in the OP. I don’t really think stores being open is part of the decline in big family get togethers but rather just a symptom of fast-paced modern times where a text has replaced conversation, families have become more geographically diverse and the world that many of us older folks grew up in has become unrecognizable or not what were raised to expect.
Now I’d better get busy or tomorrow is going to be a mad rush.
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.