The Family Reunion: A Fictional Family Portrait of Not-So-Real Family Members

by Richard Grove

  * * *

  I look forward to family reunions so I can see my sisters and all their kids. It seems there's a hole heap of them now. Ma keeps a calendar with everyone's names and birth dates just so she doesn't forget anybody. Ma is kind and thoughtful that way, always picking up something at the dollar store for someone.

  Sister Kimberley

  My big sister, Kimmy, is a lovely girl with three marriages under her belt, three skinny kids, two boys and a girl and no husband or boyfriend in sight. The oldest of all of us she always seems to be a bit of a lost soul eating away the distance of life, one delicious, cream- filled, Krispy Kream at a time.

  She is, shall I say, a rather hefty gal. When she stomps into the room and flops onto the couch, springs sing and pillows puff; the place rocks and shakes like a combine or thresher drove into the room. You will have to pardon my exaggeration and perhaps unkind description of my darling sister; I love her dearly but when she is wearing her bright red, bulging, spandex shorts they scream under stress like a giant bowl of cherry jello poured into a pair of pantihose. God forbid those pantihose should ever get a run in them.

  When Merve, her first husband disappeared, cousin Mike speculated, "She probably e't 'im." Mike stuck a chicken wing in his mouth and sucked the meat off the bone. "Just like that is how she would'a done it," he said with a grin as he flung the stripped bone clattering to his plate.

  "Sis, How are yah? So glad that you and the kids could make it. A family reunion isn't the same without your giant salad. Put your bowl in the kitchen and say hi to Ma. She's somewhere in or out." I reach way over her enormous bosom to give her a peck on her pale white cheek. "Can I get'ya anything while I'm up. Piece a celery or something." We try our best to be encouraging by offering something other than chips and beer. Here at the family reunion it is no problem but at my place there's usually little else. Honey, sometimes I can't remember her real name, hates to cook and I hate to eat her cooking even more so more often than not we eat out at the Golden Gates restaurant just down the street. They have a TV and "all you can eat" chips on Tuesdays. Honey and me head there most evenings, have dinner and watch "Everyone Loves Raymond" and "Friends" reruns. I mostly tune out when Friends comes on but Honey loves them and would stay sipping gently on her one beer for hours if she could.

  Sorry, but back to my dear sister Kimmy. She comes over to our house quite often just to get away from the kids. They are in high-school and playing sports in the evening but when they are home the music is turned up high as if they had socks in their ears. With their friends over it is more than poor Kimmy can stand.

  Honey and I don't mind her coming over but I wish she would leave her little flea-bitten chi-wawa at home. Chee Chee, as Kimmy calls it, flinches in fear every time I come near. I have tried giving it dog biscuits and even bones from our rib dinners with Bill and Juli but still Chee Chee flinches and runs as soon as I get within neck wringing distance to the ugly mutt.

  Kimmy eventually goes home when she figures her kids are in bed. She puts Chee Chee up on her bountiful chest and strolls home in those ugly floppy slippers that Little Grams gave her as a shower present for her third wedding. Flop-flop, flop-flop every step of the way as she takes her time in the cool August night. Stopping to look in the windows of the picture framing gallery she dreams of who she could have been if she had had the nerve to take those summer-school art lessons when she was just thirteen.

  None of us had much of any encouragement to get an education let alone do something as frivolous as art. I too have often wondered just what I would be doing today if I had gone to college or, God forbid, to university.

  Sisters Charlotte and Sarah

  Like Kimmy, Charlotte and Sarah were sweet likable girls. One of them needed a bit a help in the brains department but I won't say who that is because she made up for it in the prettiness of her being a girl.

  I grew up with the sweet smell of rose water lingering wherever they went. Charlotte and Sarah were far from being tomboys. They hated snakes and toads and stopped skinny dipping in Little Grams pond when they were just five or six. By the time I moved out from home and married Honey I was used to seeing frilly underpants hanging in the bathtub with piles of makeup on the counter. Wal-Mart's beauty counter obviously made a bunch off of them two.

  On Sundays us men folk would give up waiting for our turn in the bathroom. Chris, Pa and me would use the outhouse and the hand pump outside the kitchen after we did our chores, before going to church.

  Charlotte got married just before Christmas the year after Chris moved to Detroit. She wore a magical long flowing white dress that she borrowed from Auntie May and a flaming red cape that she borrowed, sight unseen, from a girlfriend. She didn't know it was bright red 'before it showed up the day of the wedding. Pa almost had a cow when he saw it and Ma was not pleased either but Charlotte just rolled with the fun of it and said "They might forget my weddin', they might forget my dress but nobody is going to forget my bright red cape." She flung the hood up over her parlour fancied hair and strutted out to Uncle Bill's new Buick and never thought anymore about it.

  Sarah went to school in Toronto; the Distant Stink I call it. We never saw her much for about three years because it was so far away. When she finally graduated with honours she moved back home, got married within a year to the feed truck driver and started having babies one after the other 'before she had two miscarriages. The doctor said she had better stop at the even half dozen she already had. From being the prettiest to being the smartest in her class she ended up having the biggest hippo hips and was the best Ma you could ever imagine. Her and her family were always the life of the family reunion, every time, bringing enough fried chicken to feed a small army.

  Sarah was the only one of us kids to get an education. It kinda bugs me that she threw it away on making babies but on the other hand I am happy she is happy. What more can we possibly ask for in life.

  Sister Mary

  Mary Beatrice was named after Aunt Mary Eddy, my pa's favourite great aunt. She was the tomboy of the four girls. For years some thought that she was a brother, always in overalls and a t-shirt, bare feet and a plaster on her elbow. Unlike her three sisters she liked snakes and toads and had an insect collection, three pet rabbits, two gerbils, crickets in a box with grass and a rooster that she called Charlie.

  Mary's favourite thing was swimming in Little Grams pond. She didn't understand why Little Grams all of a sudden started to make her wear a t-shirt when she went swimming. Mary and I hung around like Chris and I used to before he moved away. We did almost everything together. Unlike with Chris though I was safe to be alone in the outhouse alone.

  Mary was a rascal. She liked to play pranks on Pa. She was always changing the time on his alarm clock so that he'd get up too early or late for starting chores. One time when Ma was away at Kimmy's helping for a few days when Kimmy had her third baby she convinced Pa that it was Saturday when it was really Sunday. Nobody went to church that Sunday and Ma was real mad at Pa for not showing up. Ma said "You are one step closer to hell than heaven. The Lord Baby Jesus might forgive you but it'll take me some time."

  The best, or was it the worst, trick that Mary played was to convince her teacher that Pa had died in a thrasher accident. She moped and cried for a week saying she just couldn't do her homework, on account that she was mournin' somethin' awful. Mary got in a heap of trouble when the teacher sent home flowers to Ma with a note of condolence.

  Mary still lives at home with Ma and Pa. She said that she is never going to move. I figure that Mary should have the farm when Ma and Pa finally hitch their wagon that one last time.

  Now that I'm telling you about all of the women folk in my life, I'd better tell you about my grams. Seems to me that I had a bunch of them. Two were my real grams, Little Grams as us kids used to call her and then there was Big Grams, and there was Nans, Granny and Mumzy. It wasn't till I was near grown up that I learned that I only had two real gran
dmothers: Big Grams and Little Grams. None of them will be at the family reunion as they are all gone now except for Mumzy but her not being family she wouldn't be coming anyway.

  Little Grams

  Little Grams was my pa's ma. She was a wiry, spunky little lady that kept us kids in place with a stern look that we called, Grams' "evil eye". If giving us the evil eye didn't work she'd raise the yard stick or wooden spoon high in the air at us. That's all it ever took. We'd know better than to rile her any more. We'd smarten up and head out to the barn or down to the pond where we couldn't give her any trouble.

  Little Grams hired me to clean her windows and cut the grass at her farm. I kept some spending money in my pocket when I was growing up. I used to hop on my bike, a big blue one with chrome butterfly handle bars. I'd whip down the dusty country road to Little Grams' house. Her old mutt, Spunky, would see me coming, tare full tilt over the cedar rail fence, down the lane and across the hay field, just to get to me as I arrived to the rusty old mail box. Spunky would jump up onto my lap, into my handle bar carry box and wag his tail in my face as I set up the narrow lane to Grams' white frame house. I used to hang out at Little Grams for most of my summer, not even go home some nights. I'd pitch a tent that I made out of old burlap feed bags, sling it over the clothes line and fall asleep listening to the summer breeze in the trees. Spunky, would curl up beside me an whistle as he snored. Those were the best summer days of my life. Sometimes I long for such simplicity.

  Big Grams

  Big Grams was my ma's ma. It wasn't that she was so big but it was simply that she was bigger than Little Grams.

  Big Grams was my favourite, at least when I was there that is. She was the city Grams. She didn't have the vast country fields of emerald green for me to get lost in; she didn't have a crystal clear duck pond, horses or a dog but she did treat me like I was a prince. Big Grams saved baking day for when I came over. She would measure and I'd mix. Her oatmeal cookies with raisins were the best I'd ever have. Licking the spoon and spatula was the best part of baking but being with Grams and her gentle nature was what made me come back almost once a week. When I got a bit older, Ma and Pa trusted me to ride my bike into the city all on my own and stay the night. Big Grams trusted me with going to the store to pick up some groceries, usually some special treat that she knew I'd fancy.

  One night when I was just little, my sister, Kimmy and I stayed the night at Big Grams' house. Right in the middle of the night I quietly reached over and shook my sister, "Sis, Sis ... there's a bear in Grams' room. We have to shoo it or it'll eat 'er. Sis, wake up." My sister, blurry eyed, turned over and muttered, "That's no bear, that's grammy snorin', now go back to sleep." With fear still quaking deep in my chest I pulled the rough wool blanket to my chin and prayed like I never prayed before. "Dear Father-Mother God, don't let that bear eat Grams and if you do, please God, don't let him eat me too!"

  Nans, Granny and Mumzy

  As I said, I had three other grams in my life that I also thought were my real grandmothers. They were, Nans, Granny and Mumzy. Nans was a great, great aunt. I figured she was near 110. I think she must have died and no one bothered to tell me. It was only in hindsight that I realize I hadn't seen her for years. Ma later told me that she just never woke up one morning. I was a might disturbed by that idea. "How are you supposed to know if you are dead if you just don't wake up," I asked? Ma just looked at me cross the same as when she caught me looking at girls underpants in the Sears' catalogue one time. I told her that I was lookin' for the bicycle section but she never believed me.

  Granny was a special person in my life but she wasn't my real grandmother. She was just this nice little old lady that lived down the road. She seemed to be everyone's granny. Turns out her name was Mrs. Clark. Us kids liked to go over to her house to see her pet skunk. It was de-skunked so it was more like a cat and yup, it's name was Daisy.

  Granny used to give us cookies and milk every time we went over. One day when I was coming home from school, there was a moving truck outside her house emptying the place. They said she moved to an old folks home but I figured they murdered her 'cuz they wanted all of her stuff. All I know for sure is that I never saw her or Daisy again.

  Mumzy was my fifth grandmother. She used to read us kid's stories on her front porch and let us feed her cats little cat cookies. She had a grey moustache that would put a walrus to shame. It would prick your cheek when she bent down to give you a kiss. It was a small price to pay for the peek down her blouse to her pale voluptuous womanhood. Mumzy is still around but she moves a lot slower these days and she still has lots of cats.

  With all of these grandmother figures in my life I didn't once stop to wonder where the men were. Turns out one was chased off by Little Grams because he was bootlegging rum down to the U.S. of A. back in prohibition times and one was killed in the Great WW. Big Grams never stopped ranting "I lost your grandpa in a war to re-divide the colonies and make rich men richer. No King of England never asked me if I wanted to pay the price of my young husband."Big Grams never got married again and was sore at the King for the rest of her life.

  Another one packed up and took off with Bethy, the town floozy. Bethy was the prettiest woman I had ever seen. Bright red lips, deep blue eyes and a set of cantaloupes that just about knocked you out. Uncle Eric told my pa, "I give Bethy a ride in my Caddy one time before it was full a rust. Oh man, Aunt Mary was mighty mad and give him a black eye to make me think better the next time." Uncle Eric leaned over closer to my pa, "The black eye was worth it, wink wink, if you know what I mean."

  * * *

  Every year you can count on most of the aunts and uncles showing up to the family reunions. My Pa had eight brothers and sisters and my Ma had eight so it made for a heap a aunts, uncles and cousins. Still to this day I can't keep them all straight. Sometimes I figure we should have name tags at our family reunions. Last year my little niece, Cookie, as I call 'er (I'm the only one that is allowed to call her that.) leaned over to me and whispered, "Who is that guy in the purple Hawaiian shirt with the hairy white legs?" Turned out it was my Uncle Bill who she hadn't seen for years.

  Uncle Bill

  Good old Uncle Bill is usually recovering from one surgery or another and hasn't been to a family reunion since I can't remember. Aunt Kate, his young, and I mean young and very pretty, kinda short, wife always comes by herself and always brings pictures of Uncle Bill's latest surgery along with her best deviled eggs. Cookie said "Them deviled eggs is worth die'n' for an' the pictures of the surgery wanna make you die."

  Cousin Mike speculates every time he sees her, "Katie is a young tart and nothing but a gold digger, she's only after Willie's money. One day Willie ain't gunna survive one of those surgeries and that'll be the last time that we ever see her at one of our family does." Pa always pipes up in Auntie Kate's defense, "There is one thing wrong with your surmise Mike, Willie ain't got no money you silly dope. He lost his second last dime on that Cup-O-Matic hot cup a soup car plug in contraption years ago. Don't you remember him tryin' to convince you to run some wires and hoses over your engine so as you could have hot soup at the press of a button while you drove. That's why you still get soup packets every year for Christmas."

  Uncle Bill is a farmer like most of us, but he now sells AmWay on the side. He used to bring his catalogues and samples to family reunions until a year ago Aunt Kate whacked him in the arm and hollered, "Why do you need remindin' you old fart, you have been trying to sell dish detergent and stain remover to your cheap family for years and no one has ever bought any." I didn't want to remind her that ma bought a bottle of dish detergent just because she felt sorry for him one year. She put the bottle under the sink and told him every time he got out his catalogues, "It ain't finished Willy, I'll tell you when I need more." She told him this, year after year and refused to use a drop of it. What ma doesn't know is that pa used it up along time ago to kill tomato bugs and filled the bottle with water so
ma wouldn't know.

  One time Uncle Bill gave a demonstration of how good his detergent worked. To show how environmentally safe it was he said he would drink some to prove it was harmless. Everyone perked up and egged him on. The demonstration kit said to mix a certain part detergent with a certain part water. He got the parts mixed up and spent the rest of that family party in the outhouse. To this day if anyone is the least bit "irregular" , if I can be so bold as to use that word, they ask Uncle Bill if he has any of his "Willy's Wonder Drug" with him.

  We have a lot of aunts and uncles that come to the family reunion. We have some great aunts, no great uncles left, plus some older second cousins that we call auntie and uncle and a few friends of the family that we call auntie and uncle as well. It's no wonder I can't keep them all straight. One more invented aunt or uncle will turn our family tree into a tangled crooked bush. I swear one year I'm gonna bring name tags to keep everyone straight.