Family re-unions are always fraught with the fear of disappointment. Families fracture and move apart, and when they come back together ….. the pieces have grown and moved on …. so they never quite fit again. Sort of an ancestoral jigsaw. Children have grown up, but older members forget that, they only see the child. So the domineering and overly paternal attitude grates, and threatens to fracture the family again. And heaven help you if you are labelled “a disappointmentâ€. The ties are no longer as binding, and todays generation don’t feel the same driving need to maintain relationships like previous generations. A stressful and fastpaced life means I don’t feel the pressure to maintain anything outside my direct line.
I met up with a long lost cousin. Like me he never really fitted with the family dynamic….. I ran away, he probably did too. I didn’t have many memories…. A tall gangly teenager, with wild surfer curly hair, and a slightly bemused patient smile when he had to deal with the attentions of two preteen girls. An older big brother cousin, who didn’t tease or torment me, didn’t call me fat like my other cousins.
And now …… in ways he’s very different, and much the same. That same bemused smile when I start rabbiting on. A smile that reaches to his eyes, and reminds me so much of a favourite uncle (and godfather). But like me he has changed, like me he proabably hasn’t liked all of the changes. The curly hair is gone, and not quite so gangly. As I have grown, he doesn’t seem quite so tall. But still change is good. It remains to see how this new jigsaw will fit together though.