Meeting family

                                                                            U.S. America

 As a kid, I never spent time with my father's family. My mother considered them "ignorant foreigners" and refused to have anything to do with them.

They had migrated from Nova Scotia in the 1920s.

My parents divorced. My mother had custody and my father disappeared from my life.

My mother fought my marriage at 20. When my bridegroom was sent to Stuttgart to play in the 82nd Army Band, I moved in with my father, whom I had not seen for many years while I waited to join my husband. Also there was my stepmom, who was anything but the "little tramp" my mother described her. My stepmom and I went on to have decades of a wonderful relationship.

Before I was due to sail on the U.S. America to join my new husband, my father and stepmom suggested we go to a Boston nightclub with my aunt, uncle, cousins Marilyn and Frank.

I should have suspected something. Neighbor Ray "returned" a 50-cup coffee maker. My father spent the day cooking for a neighbor who was having a party. "He does it so well, people want him to help," my stepmom said. "He loves doing it."

My aunt, uncle and cousins arrived. I liked them immediately. My cousin Marilyn needed to take a bath and get dressed for the nightclub. She took forever and I mean forever. 

Finally she came out, the same time the house filled with people, lots of people, who turned out to be aunts, uncles and cousins I had not seen since I was in kindergarten or longer if ever.

My father seated me before a huge model of the U.S. America covered with envelopes. "Open them," he said.

I did. "Thank you Aunt Lillie," I said looking around the room after opening the card from her with $20, hoping Aunt Lillie would reveal herself. The same for Billie, Evelyn, Bert, Agnes, Butch, Walter and on and on. There were envelopes from an uncle and aunt living in Washington and another who was a ship's captain and at sea. I was welcomed verbally and with hugs into this "foreign" family.

Over the years, I spent much time with these aunts, uncles and cousins: birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, bbqs and get togethers for no reason other than they enjoyed their own company. I heard family lore and now wish I had had asked more questions and recorded the stories. I regretted missing the fun the cousins had had. 

As they retired, most of them moved to the same town in Florida. I would go down and be treated like a visiting princess, feted with my favorite foods. I could make the rounds in the morning and get to spend time with each of these loving people one on one.

Eventually funerals replaced the get togethers. My stepmom was the last to go, leaving a hole in my heart and my soul stuffed with memories of a loving family that left Nova Scotia and made a successful life for themselves and my generation and now the generation after.