A Message to my Brother (and my sisters…and my other brothers…)

My first and last stops on our big Utah trip this summer were at my brother Val’s house in Kentucky. His home about 9 hours west of ours makes a great resting place, and on our way back home we stayed for a couple of days.

I had to get a brake job on our van when we got to Missouri and so we didn’t get to Val’s house until late that night. The rest of his family was asleep when we arrived but he was still up, so we sat and talked for an hour or two. We always enjoy each other’s company, now that we’re both adults and he’s stopped calling me a fat cow.

I didn’t see much of Val over the next two days of our visit. One day I slept a lot and one day he wasn’t feeling well. I was glad that we’d had a good visit our first night there.

As we were getting ready to leave on our last afternoon I made everyone come out into the front yard so we could take pictures. They all know how I am about pictures and they humored me nicely.

As we were gathering the kids and arranging them for the pictures Val apologized for not having spent as much time with me as he would have liked while we were there. And then he said something interesting. He said, pointing to all of the children “But you know the reason you’re here is not me and you, it’s them—the cousins.”

I grew up thinking my cousins were the most wonderful people on the earth. We loved our family reunions as children, and as we grew up and married we kept coming back to these reunions. We swore that we always would; we made promises to each other that we would make sure our children would know their children (2nd cousins) so that they would be happy to come to our reunions instead of bored like we were when our parents dragged us to theirs.

For a long time we made it happen. At least 3 or 4 times in the first 18 years after Russ & I were married we had a “Callis Watson Reunion”—a reunion with mygrandparents, my dad & his siblings, and all of their children and later their children. Each time it was bigger and more difficult to arrange. The last time it happened it was complicated enough that it seemed clear that it wouldn’t happen like that again. I could see that despite our earlier resolves, as our individual families had gotten bigger it was really all we could do to make sure that our children knew their first cousins and felt close to them; in most instances the 2nd cousins didn’t know each other at all and weren’t really interested in hanging out together during that week at the beach.

A couple of weeks ago I went overnight to my grandparent’s farm. My dad & Ramona have lived there for the last year and we wanted to see them one more time before they headed back to Utah. While we were there my aunt arrived to spend a couple of days, and then one of my uncles. In the morning before we left my dad & Ramona were at the temple and I hung out with my aunt and uncle. (sorry, no pictures!) It was fun to talk to them and to listen to them talk and laugh together. And as I watched them, I had a realization.

They’ve come full circle.

And one day my siblings and I will as well.

Right now it may seem like the most important reason that I stop and stay a couple of days at Val’s house is so that our kids can spend time together and grow to love each other more. But one day my kids are going to be busy with families of their own, and Val’s kids are going to be busy with families of their own. At a certain point it will be all my children can do to make sure that my grandchildren get to know each other and Val’s children will be busy making sure that Val’s grandchildren get to know each other. There just won’t be that much energy left over for my children and Val’s children to do much interacting.

But me & Val? We’ll still have the connection of having grown up together. Of knowing so many of each other’s stories and yet still being amazed that every now and then a new story floats to the top of the conversation. I’ll still be amazed that he actually survived his childhood adventures and he’ll probably still be talking about how I thought I knew everything.

I hope that he & I, along with the rest of our amazing brothers and sisters, will continue to enjoy each other’s company the way I see my dad & his siblings enjoying each other now. I hope we can be old and gray and still sit around and laugh with and at each other, still get together to help each other out, and still reminisce about our mother together.

So I’m going to retroactively disagree with you, my brother. I do stop and visit you so that our kids can have time together. I have loved watching them become friends over the years, and I will try to help that continue as long as possible. But I also stop and visit because of you. Because of you and me, and because I want us to still have that connection, long after our kids are off living their own lives.

PS—Katie makes an interesting point. This is much more true in my family, me with my 9 brothers and sisters and 40-something cousins (quantity, not age!) than it is in her family with her one cousin. I think there’s just a critical mass in a larger family that doesn’t exist in a smaller family.