Separation tears the heart. Why have we made it the modern way of life?
When I was a girl families tended to stay in the same area, no one more than an hour's drive away. Oh, there was Uncle Earl, who divorced his wife and immigrated to Alaska, which was our last frontier. He opened a barber shop and sent home pictures of himself standing outside his log cabin, bundled in furs, icicles hanging from his beard.
Now that I think of it, Uncle Wilbur lived in Gary, Indiana, where he ran a barber shop in the glassed-in front porch of his urban house. (I don't know how two of my mother's brothers became barbers. My father, too, barbered for a while. I have his barber shears and thinning shears as testimony.)
Nevertheless, relatives aplenty lived close enough for Sunday afternoon visits. We would pile in the 1940 Plymouth sedan and drive east to visit Uncle Ben and Aunt Vena. Uncle Ben had a general store in a remote farming area. He and his store were the link between the farmers and population centers. He used to let me candle the eggs farm women brought in to trade for merchandise. Before he could sell them to stores he had to make sure the eggs had not spoiled or contained embryos.
Aunt Ethel and her several offspring lived in nearby towns. We saw these relatives often. I would spend a summer week with my two boy cousins, who lived in a little town not far from ours. We slept on cots in the back yard, gazed at stars and watched for comets.
Then there was my adoptive dad's family, many within easy driving distance. These were the relatives we shared Thanksgiving with, played pitch with, fished with, and shared Sunday dinners with.
Another branch was my father's brothers and parents. My father was killed in a tragic steel mill accident before I was two. We didn't see these grandparents and uncles often, but they were on the Sunday afternoon visit list.
Family was all around. They were special; they were many; they were mine.
Now, the balance has shifted. The norm is to leave rather than stay. The world has greatly expanded. Any place is within reach. People are isolated from their families for the most part. Young parents must raise their children without the support of family members. Grandchildren grow up without the family network. The nuclear family huddles together around the dinner table, a tidy, lonely unit.
The annual or semi-annual gathering, such as the one we just concluded, requires great expense and effort. It requires us to cram six months or a year of interaction into a week or a long week-end.
Yes, separation is tearing at my heart today. I mourn the loss of opportunity to know one another deeply, to share a variety of experiences and to give and receive many hugs, but now I must wrench myself away from the recent love fest and find meaning in a simple, semi-solitary existence.
When I was a girl families tended to stay in the same area, no one more than an hour's drive away. Oh, there was Uncle Earl, who divorced his wife and immigrated to Alaska, which was our last frontier. He opened a barber shop and sent home pictures of himself standing outside his log cabin, bundled in furs, icicles hanging from his beard.
Now that I think of it, Uncle Wilbur lived in Gary, Indiana, where he ran a barber shop in the glassed-in front porch of his urban house. (I don't know how two of my mother's brothers became barbers. My father, too, barbered for a while. I have his barber shears and thinning shears as testimony.)
Nevertheless, relatives aplenty lived close enough for Sunday afternoon visits. We would pile in the 1940 Plymouth sedan and drive east to visit Uncle Ben and Aunt Vena. Uncle Ben had a general store in a remote farming area. He and his store were the link between the farmers and population centers. He used to let me candle the eggs farm women brought in to trade for merchandise. Before he could sell them to stores he had to make sure the eggs had not spoiled or contained embryos.
Aunt Ethel and her several offspring lived in nearby towns. We saw these relatives often. I would spend a summer week with my two boy cousins, who lived in a little town not far from ours. We slept on cots in the back yard, gazed at stars and watched for comets.
Then there was my adoptive dad's family, many within easy driving distance. These were the relatives we shared Thanksgiving with, played pitch with, fished with, and shared Sunday dinners with.
Another branch was my father's brothers and parents. My father was killed in a tragic steel mill accident before I was two. We didn't see these grandparents and uncles often, but they were on the Sunday afternoon visit list.
Family was all around. They were special; they were many; they were mine.
Now, the balance has shifted. The norm is to leave rather than stay. The world has greatly expanded. Any place is within reach. People are isolated from their families for the most part. Young parents must raise their children without the support of family members. Grandchildren grow up without the family network. The nuclear family huddles together around the dinner table, a tidy, lonely unit.
The annual or semi-annual gathering, such as the one we just concluded, requires great expense and effort. It requires us to cram six months or a year of interaction into a week or a long week-end.
Yes, separation is tearing at my heart today. I mourn the loss of opportunity to know one another deeply, to share a variety of experiences and to give and receive many hugs, but now I must wrench myself away from the recent love fest and find meaning in a simple, semi-solitary existence.
1 comment:
I feel your pain, Mamacita...
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