Cousins, Chewbaca, Life & Death

I have a lot of cousins. The following is something of a list. It may be worth reading. Two of my uncles died in the spring and one aunt had heart surgery this week. One uncle was terrified to die; the other did not seem to consider it; my aunt says she is satisfied with her life and whatever happens, she is okay with it. My aunt is doing fine right now. My father is extremely overweight, diabetic, and he has a heart condition. These are the people I have known all my life, and now we are watching things change. My parents have been parents to some of them for years, and now my parents, my Dad in particular, has become a sort of symbol.

My dad had a lot of siblings and then most of them had a lot of kids. (My mom has one brother and although he had three kids, I do not know them too well. They lived far away. That is okay, because my father's side of the family is so large that I had/have plenty.) Let's start at the top. There's the cousin, Laura, who is almost as old as my mom and once told me, in reference to my curls, that I look like Chewbaca. She meant the roaring ape-pal who accompanied Harrison Ford on his missions in the original Star Wars. I did not like her, but her short short hair was some solace. It was not cute, just short. It's her mother in the hospital. Laura is very wealthy now. I called her up tonight and she told me she's exhausted. She has hurt a lot of people's feelings lately, but I called anyway.

Then came - in sort-of birth order - a horde of cousins who were roughly the same age. The hippy-ish ones were best: Barbara and Lance lived with us for awhile because both of their parents had died. That was sad, very, Their Mom was beloved to both of my parents, and she had been sick for a long time. Their dad had died when they were very little. To me, it was kinda fun because Lance had a chemistry set and Babs talked a lot about boys. I don't remember that but my mom tells me she - my mom- was freaked out to suddenly have a teenager. She was not just a teenager, she was a swearing, dating, drinking teenager, and my mother had never done much of that herself. Babs went to live elsewhere for the rest of high school. I got to keep Babs' giant stuffed panda. Later Babs joined the Peace Corps and when she visited she had a boyfriend with a straggly beard. She was just here last weekend to visit my aunt in the hospital- she drove 4 hours because she just had to see her. Both of our kids are 17 now. Babs stayed overnight so we yakked for awhile before bed.

Lisa - another hippy cousin - wore ponchos and took me on little trips while she was applying to medical school all over Boston. She kept getting rejected and no one could figure out why. Eventually she got in, and became a psychiatrist, like my dad. Her parents lived in New York and for some vague reason they did not speak to my parents much. But Lisa was very sweet to me, and knew I was kind of shy. She had two brothers, but I did not get to know them until I was older. After Lisa's brother died at age 21, our families made up, very publicly, and since then we have had a special connection with them. Her mother died a few years later, but like Lisa, she made a concerted effort to reach out to me and my sister before her death. Now I know one of them, Paul, really well, and his wife, Tracey. We stay at their house when we go to New York. They have 3 wonderful adult girls. One of them is in medical school, and Paul is a doctor, too. I don't know why so many people in my family are doctors. I'm not a doctor. Actually, at one point, Paul's daughter was terribly sick, and I am quite sure that motivated her to go to medical school. Now that will be one more opinion about my aunt and her heart surgery!

Natalie used to babysit for all four of us and she says my mother gave her 35 cents an hour. We were not exactly a calm group of kids, and she had to bathe us, too. My older brother was only 16 months older, then I was a couple years older than my sister, and she was a couple years older than my younger brother. I believe Natalie about the low-paying work, but my mother shakes her head. I don't think Natalie has ever told a lie in her life. She was the closest in age to us, although Nora was about the same age and they were best friends. They were even roommates in college. Nora straightened her hair and it was really gorgeous shiny, which mine could never be. Shiny, that is. When Nora got pregnant, after she was married, she took pictures of her huge naked belly - there were twins in there - and passed them around to family members. It embarrassed my father. It was quite a sight seeing her marvel at herself in the mirror. Nora's dad died last spring after a long painful illness, and a few weeks later, Natalie's dad died, too. That was too much. I knew Nora's dad pretty well. He was very opinionated, an encyclopedia of movie history, a lover of the arts, and continually generous with copies of movies or performances he thought you might enjoy. One time at a wedding, the cheapo d.j. informed us all that we would get up and dance. Uncle Simon said "I'm not dancing." I was so relieved. Twelve years old and the thought of dancing in that temple basement had horrified me. I feel guilty not saying more about Natalie's dad. He was a big friendly man, a football player: but that's the way it is in big families. You know some people better than others.

Jake, one of Natalie's big brother's, with the sweetest smile I ever saw on a boy, had a rock band. One afternoon in my aunt's kitchen, one of his long-hair rock band friends said to my little brother "don't touch that mike - it's worth more than you are." We just stood there silent by the stove. I wasn't old enough to say "asshole." Oh well. Jake was Natalie's brother, and she had 2 others. Poor girl. That seemed like a lot to me. The oldest was Michael, a serious guy who did not appreciate my fresh breath when I showed it off after brushing my teeth one night during a big family visit. Next came Benny, who paid me a lot of attention, always telling me how pretty I was. He had a bike, and then a motorbike, or a motorcycle, I can't remember. I loved the attention from an older cousin, but as usual, I was just a pipsqueak. I saw them all when we sat shiva for their dad last spring, and the house hadn't changed at all. It was as if my Aunt Shelley and Uncle Norman had decided to stand still in time. The kitchen still smelled sweet, her little teeth were still white, and it was still fun to use both sets of stairs. Only now a tiny half-African grandchild toddled around the place.

My cousin Edy, brown hair, brown eyes, was over our house all the time when I was a kid, and even came on a family trip to Bermuda. Her mother died when she was little and she talked like a train ride - she just kept going. Her mom had been the oldest, I think, but had died so young that even my own mom had not met her. Edy babysat and showed me all the books she had to read for college. That was scary. How could I ever do that? At some point she started dating a guy up the hill. His mother had kidnapped our cat at one point to breed it, or so we had suspected, but no one cared, because the cat was all white, with blue eyes, and nasty. When Ball & Chain locked the keys in the car at the cemetery, and it was about 10 degrees out in my awful black dress, Edy and her husband waited with us while the two truck came. Actually, she tried calling the fire department because she knew that would be quicker, but it turned out to be a tie, and Triple A helped us out.

I left out a coupla people but not because I forgot them. One cousin and one brother died as young adults. Their deaths were awful, and there is not much more to sat about that. Other folks not mentioned: My cousin Cybil was sweet, but she was not around much, and by the time I was old enough to notice she had moved to New York and become an Hasidic Jew. If I were writing about second cousins that would be an entire chapter. But alas, I am not. She has an enormous family, and I saw her recently at her father's funeral. She is Nora's sister. My cousin Marvin was at every family party ever given and he drove my sister nuts because he was always pinching her ass. He was otherwise friendly and it gave us something to talk about, I suppose. I spoke to him tonight on the phone, as his mother has just had the heart surgery. He sounded lousy. He has however, just fallen in love for the first time - apparently - at age 62. Now that he has his own piece of ass, perhaps the circle is complete! His older sister was the one who had called me Chewbaca.

I could draw a tree here or tell you that my brother looks like Paul and I look like Barb and Lance looks like my dad, and even Barb's adopted daughter looks like her dad. It's intriguing to see the genetics in all of it. But actually I think those Jewish immigrants knew what they were doing when they spewed out so many kids. And probably the Catholics and some of those other folks too. When my 85-year-old aunt gets out of the hospital, and while she's there, plenty of people will look after her. And when someone dies young, people come and help out. When someone celebrates, we all come together. We have weddings coming up, we had a rainy family reunion in July. I have my people.