Family Reunion Part 3: All for one and one more meatball please

It took about 20 minutes for Samantha to decide she liked me. I’m not sure what I did or what she saw, but at one point during lunch Samantha decided to waddle on over to me and make nice. This of course charmed me to no end, and so after finishing my sandwiches I headed over to the yard in search of some new game to invent.

What happened next was the creation of the greatest game ever invented in the history of games. The game was called “Fish” and I am convinced that to this day Sam and Michael still talk about it in their own special baby language. Translated it would sound something like this:

Sam: Do you remember that time Steve was here playing Fish?
Michael: Remember? How could I forget! That was awesome
Sam: Totally! Steve must be one of the greatest Fish players ever. I wonder if he’s ever on ESPN?
Michael: On it? I’m sure the guy makes the top ten plays on a nightly basis!
Sam: Totally.(they high five each other)

Here’s how it's played: Steve takes a rubber fish toy and tosses it in the air. Then he catches it. He tosses it again and catches it behind his back. Then Samantha takes the fish and throws it. She chases after it, and throws it to Steve. The process repeats. Michael joins in as well, completing the Fish team as he tries his best to out distance his sister.

After inventing “Fish”, Samantha and I were inseparable.

The big family reunion was set for Sunday afternoon, so on Saturday night we all went out to a drive-in movie. The sheer novelty of a drive-in didn’t escape me. Even here in the quaint South, drive-ins are few and far between. Come to think of it, I have no clue where the nearest one is. For all I know it’s the one near my cousin’s house. Anyway, we saw “Superman Returns”, and Samantha and I tried to cuddle but I had difficulty finding a cozy spot for her on my ample midriff. Eventually I handed her over to Ki Ki whose boobies provided a soft cushion for the child.

On Sunday we woke to fresh bagels and the excitement of anticipation. I hadn’t seen my family in over two years, and I was really looking forward to seeing them all. Or would we? My brother Frank had said he wanted to come but thought they might have to spend the day with his wife Anna’s family. All week long Aunt Jean and Uncle Frank had been leaving messages for Brother Frank wondering if he would make it to Cousin Frank’s because frankly the family needed to know how many pounds of franks to pick up at the supermarket. So at 1:00 when Cousin Frank and I were setting the table we had no idea if Brother Frank and Anna were coming. We decided to set a place for them and hope for the best.

The first to arrive were Aunt Jean and Uncle Frank along with my brother Vinnie and his wife Deborah. We were so happy to see them! The hugs were plentiful and the drinks soon followed, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you this one story: as we headed out the porch door to the yard below, Vinnie turn to Ki Ki and said “I’ll never forget what you did for my mother”. It was a loving acknowledgement for all the time Ki Ki spent with Mom during her last days. I could never do justice in this post to what my wife did those days, but someday soon I will try.

We sat down and caught up on old times, Ki Ki and I asking about their lives in Arizona, Vin and Deb wanting to know more about Virginia, and all of us missing Butch and Pat who were still in Arizona and unable to make the trip. Vin told tales of retirement and Deb shared their travel tales, while we spoke of work and Ki Ki’s family, but the big news we wanted to share would wait.

Soon after my cousin Anne and her husband Rich showed up with their kids: Danielle, Jennifer and Alex, collectively known as the Triplets. I was amazed by how big they’d grown and how well they behaved! I swear these weren’t the same kids I used to know. Those kids were wild hellions, tearing around wherever they’d go and leaving a trail of dust in their wake. These kids were different. Alex wanted to watch the Soccer game while the girls wanted to play with their little cousins. What an amazing sight!  We talked more about work, drank a bit more, and then we heard the news: Frank and Anna were on their way! It would be a reunion after all!

When I first saw my brother Frank, I was surprised that the mane of salt and pepper hair on his head had a lot more salt than I remembered. So did his goatee. I swear the guy looked like Col. Sanders, but needless to say I was thrilled to see him. Anna too. We hugged and hugged and then Brother Frank grabbed Ki Ki and hugged her so hard he lifted her off the ground. There was much meaning in all of this, but this is not the forum to detail. Suffice it to say there was much love shared, and forgiveness given where forgiveness wasn’t really required. We were all so happy to be together, we hadn’t been so together in so long.   

The family sat together at the picnic table Cousin Frank and I had set up earlier. Everyone had copious plates of food in front of them so I knew I finally had them where I wanted them. I stood up and positioned myself behind my wife. The mere fact that I’d just stepped away from a plate of food was a huge indication that I was about to say something quite important.  “Everybody, first of all I want to tell you how happy we are to be with you all here today at our first family reunion. Ki Ki and I love you all so very much, and being here is just fantastic. With that, we have a little announcement to make”.

At that point you could see the chewed food in the open mouthed gapes of my family.

“Ki Ki and I have started the adoption process, and we are expecting a baby girl in about 12 to 18 months”.

Everyone started to applaud and cheer, it was so sweet. I turned to the “kiddie table”, only to see Alex, Danielle, and Jennifer clapping and cheering too. And I saw Jennifer look at me and give me the biggest smile. Sometimes kids do things just because that’s what the adults are doing. This was not one of those times. The joy in my little cousins was genuine.

We ate and celebrated, and ate some more. We took lots of pictures and if we ever find the darn USB cable for the camera we’ll post a few here.  Samantha and Michael and I played Fish, but mostly the triplets occupied the twins. We talked into the night and I didn’t want it to end.

But it did, and when all was said and done my family’s first family reunion was a success.

There are days that stick to my memory that are different from all the others. The day I came home from taking my high school entrance exams, to the pine smell of my Brother Vinnie cleaning the floors on a spring Saturday morning.  Why that day is so vivid in my memory I’ll never know. Or the day my Dad and I took a pedal boat out on Lake Buena Vista in Florida and I pedaled my Dad around for an hour, feeling for the first time that now it was my turn to take care of my Parents. If I look up in my minds eye, I can still see the blue breaking between the clouds in the August sky of 1978. The family reunion is one of those days. I can tell because the memory is different, in bright resilient colors, encoded in my mind’s eye and only a thoughtful wish away.

Family Reunion Part 2: We're spending our vacation with MY family???!!!

There was a moment during the time before the trip to New York when all was spinning wildly at work, and it seemed that if I didn’t have a vacation soon I might collapse from exhaustion or at least have a mild nervous breakdown. It was the moment when it occurred to me that on top of all of this consonant dissonance we had decided to spend our summer vacation with my family.

Now hang on, my family isn’t all that bad. It’s just that when things are spinning as wildly as they had been the best therapy for me is quite time with Ki Ki and only Ki Ki, far away from everyone. Places like the Eastern Shore, or a ranch in Santa Fe, or a cave somewhere outside of Bedrock come to mind. But with my family? My large loud Italian family complete with 10 year old triplets and 2 year old twins?

I feared the worst.

We left for New York on Saturday morning, July 8th at about 5:30 in the morning, aware that the Virginia State Police had ordered a crack down on speeders. One thing that’s nice about Virginia is that they announce the locations of the speed traps on the news. The day before, a large smelly looking trooper had appeared on the local news broadcast and said that the State Police would be doing a saturation on I-95, and basically that was your warning and don’t bother telling your out of state friends because they had a quota to meet and if they didn’t meet it then the next time we’d be on our own. OK, I made that last part up.

In the 90 miles between Richmond and Maryland we counted 11 troopers.

Ki Ki drove until we hit Mikes Famous at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. If you’ve never been there, you should visit. Mike’s Famous is a combination Harley Davidson dealership, gift shop, and restaurant. The place harkens back to the days of the old roadside attraction, complete with its own radio station and a collection of bikes that is quite astonishing. We arrived a little before 9:00 so all the happy bikers were just rolling out of beer, err, bed and opening the place up. We each gobbled down a delicious biker breakfast sandwich of eggs, sausage, cheese, more sausage, and a defibrillator on a hard roll with fried potatoes and coffee and headed back on the road. This time I was driving.

On the other end of the Delaware Memorial Bridge lies the New Jersey Turnpike. The New Jersey Turnpike is the most uninteresting stretch of road ever constructed on earth. It’s straight, dull, and stretches 16 exits over its 110 miles. There’s nothing exciting to see or do on the New Jersey Turnpike, so when you think about it, it’s the perfect metaphor for its home state.  However what it did accomplish was it transitioned me from gentleman from Virginia driver to lunatic from New York driver. At exit 8, I tuned in the local New York “news traffic and weather on the 8’s” station, and could feel the adrenaline starting to flow. By the time we hit the George Washington Bridge, I had remembered how to cuss. By the time we left da Bronx, I had remembered how to cuss in Spanish.

We began the drive north towards Dutchess County where my cousin Frank and his wife Lisa and their twins Samantha and Michael live, and passed the places I lived when I first moved out of my parent’s house. It brought back a flood of memories as I accelerated our car a bit faster, the way I used to when I drove those same roads in my 20’s. The towns flew by, and they were closer to each other than I remembered: Tarrytown, Elmsford, White Plains, all separated by a few miles and a few minutes. We drove further north towards Shrub Oak, the first place in New York Ki Ki and I spent any time together, and were surprised by how much construction was going on in the old neighborhood. It was wonderful and exhilarating and I enjoyed every moment of that ride with my wife by my side.

Finally, we had put the miles behind us and had arrived at my cousin’s place. It was as I remembered it, so new and perfect with a view that was breathtaking. I love that place. I wondered what my little cousins would look like, for the last time I saw them was at their Christening. How big would they be? Would they talk? They’d be shy of course, Ki Ki and I are strangers, but we’d win them over.

And then we saw them.

Nothing had prepared me for that moment. They were beautiful children, both Samantha and Michael, and they seemed so grown up. And there was my cousin Frank, and he was all grown up too. He was a Dad now, and he carried himself like a Dad. There was fatherly and scholarly air to him, and it was amazing to see. My cousin’s wife Lisa was there too, and she was Mom now. She’s a fun loving, beautiful, designer wearing Long Island girl, and now she was with her children, showering them with love and affection. And setting limits, and always teaching.

And at that moment, Ki Ki and I both knew that if God forbid anything ever happened to us, we would want Frank and Lisa to raise our child too.