This weekend, as we've done many weekends in the past, my family and I drove from our home in central NJ to the home of my wife's great aunt and great uncle on Long Island. As usual, on a Sunday in summer, the traffic was less than ideal. As usual, drivers had to slow down and rubber neck as they slowed to watch the big kites being flown. As usual the traffic reports seemed to forget highways in Queens and Brooklyn exist as they didn't feel the great need to mention that certain highways were backed up (but I heard about the bridges and tunnels every 10 minutes).
As usual, the house was packed with relatives. The contingent from central NJ, including us, were there, as well as those who live in Suffolk, a few miles from the house (the family is about evenly split between LI, Queens and NJ). There was plenty of food and talking. The younger cousins, some who hadn't seen each other since December, went through the woods that back onto the house, over a fence and into a school playground. My wife caught up with her cousins. I walked my daughter, wearing her princess dress for her great, great aunt and uncle, up the street so she could see the flowers some of the neighbors were growing (and show off). With the exception of those family members out of town on vacation, everyone from the tri-state area was there. All in all, just a usual family get together.
Oh wait, aside from the vacationers, there were two other people missing, at least physically, from the party. You see the great aunt passed away in December after a year long battle with cancer, and the uncle died on Friday. They didn't believe in funerals or the afterlife so, like when their mother passed away in December, their children held a celebration of their father's life at their home.
Though their parents weren't physically in the house, their presence was all over. It helped that the house looked as it always did, furniture and pictures in the same place etc. Their chairs were still in front of the TV, the phone on the lamp table between the chairs with an old NY Times folded up waiting to be read, the bed made as always. The only difference was the buffet was self serve and the aunt wasn't floating around to make sure we all had enough to eat. As one of the grandchildren noted, it was hard to accept that the couple were no longer here as it was, basically, business as usual in the house as we all came out to honor the memory of a very salt of the earth couple.
The children brought out the older family snapshots and the older cousins spent time going through the pictures, laughing at how young they were, writing names on the back. It was interesting to see the pictures of my wife's grandmother at 3, looking like our daughter does now, and again at 7 looking like my wife did as a child. Friends of my wife's cousins of all ages floated in and out, all with stories of how welcomed they were always made to fell in that home. All in all, you could feel the love people had for the couple. There were some tears, especially by the older relatives, many of whom had been going to and sleeping at that home for almost half a century, that their aunt/uncle/cousins were gone and this would probably be the last time theywould ever enter that home. Another chapter in their lives closed.
By the end of the day, the children looked exhausted. As the daughter said, she is looking forward to some down time. Her father's health, already in decline, took a serious turn down after his wife of 63 years passed. She was so busy caring for her father she hadn't even had time to process her mother's death. Still, both she and her brother, felt this was a wonderful way to celebrate the lives of their parents. With all the people crammed into the house, it was quite obvious they were well loved.
Though the mood was festive, there was also a mood of melancholy in the air. The people we came to honor were gone. For the older relatives, this was the last link to their parents' generation. We were sad, but not crying sad. We all knew they had a nice, long run in relatively good health. Though we knew we'd miss them, we were already moving on. Yet, there was something else.
We all made promises to see each other again, when things quiet down, but, in reality, we know it will be some time. With the common ancestors now gone, the big family get togethers are probably done too. The events will move to the next generation or even the generation after that as we are more scattered these days. Even if they continue, they won't be the same. Perhaps that was what we were really mourning.
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