Within our family there was no such thing as a person who did not matter. Second cousins thrice removed mattered.
~Shirley Abbott
I grew up thinking I was related to the entire county. Seriously! My mother was the fourteenth child in a family of fifteen. You know your family is overly large when every possible crush you have is heralded off-limits because “he’s your cousin.” Needless to say, years later, all those cousins have married and our family has expanded. Every year, we celebrate with a reunion and Thanksgiving meal together, thankful for each other and the past year’s blessings. Last year’s head count was 641 souls — all from Gerrit and Rolena and their fifteen children.
Technically, we are a small village, and there are always new faces and missed faces. When we walk into the reunion on Thanksgiving evening, we are met with a loud hum of voices and laughter, the squeals of children playing games, and the mixed smells of apple pie, pumpkin pie, turkey and stuffing. We always serve buffet-style, with a notebook at the beginning of the line in which the direct descendants are required to sign our names, which of the original fifteen we belong to and how many people we brought to the reunion.
So it happened that about a month after another epic Thanksgiving reunion, just a few days before Christmas, my cousin, Teresa, was stopped by a gentleman with two little pig-tailed girls in tow at a local store.
“Hello, I’m sorry, but I recognize you from the meal held on Thanksgiving,” he said to her.
He went on to explain that the day before Thanksgiving, his wife had left him and his two daughters. Devastated but determined to uphold Thanksgiving for his children’s sake, he had dressed and bundled up his daughters, intent on finding a restaurant for a Thanksgiving meal.
There were no restaurants open due to the holiday, but he noticed a large number of cars at the community center and deduced that there must be a community Thanksgiving meal. He took his daughters inside and was met with the crazy chaos of my very large family. They were greeted like they belonged and encouraged to take off their coats. The father pulled up a chair and watched as his daughters quickly took off with new friends to play tag in the gym. He knew a few of the others in the room, but most were strangers.
When the children were summoned from the gym to gather for the prayer and meal, he began to realize this might not be a community meal after all. He noticed families grouping together to get in the buffet line. But his giggling girls were hungry, and the food smelled amazing, so with two little hands in his, he joined the line. However, when he reached the notebook, his suspicions were confirmed.
It wasn’t a community event at all. He and his daughters had just crashed a family event. So, he humbly wrote his name in the notebook and noted they were a party of three. He was certain someone was going to call him out on it, but no one said a word. His family enjoyed the meal, and then sat a while longer to have dessert and play a few more games. Then, he bid everyone “goodnight,” to the dismay of his daughters, who begged to stay just a little longer.
At this point, Teresa smiled and hugged the newest unofficial member of our family. She told the man he was most welcome, and invited him to come again next year as our family blossoms in all sorts of ways. And, by our deduction, since he does live in our county, he most likely is a cousin anyway!
~C. Joy
