Families

Between my husband, Paul, and I we have thirty siblings. And all from one set of parents each. So the annual reunion (on Paul's side) and the biennial reunion (on my side)consist of upwards of a hundred people, some of whom we can’t name. This does not include the "cousin reunion" on my mother's side which happens every three years in places as far-flung as the upper peninsula of Michigan to Arizona and Idaho.

We can usually guess at parentage, as in, "She must be a Petersheim with that nose!" or "He can't hide where he's from with all those freckles." It actually makes for an amusing game worthy of Parker Brothers themselves, trying to guess who goes where. Keeping track of birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and other milestones has become so overwhelming that we've given up on it long ago. Hopefully, with so many aunts and uncles and cousins, the kids don’t remember us either or notice our absence during their special occasions.

Since I was the youngest of eleven, and way behind the others, I had a life of luxury and ease, at least according to my brothers and sisters - all of whom had to work like dogs just to survive - again, according to my brothers and sisters. I grew up with my nieces and nephews. One of my nieces is six months older than I am. Another niece has been one of my best friends for most of my life. My kids keep wanting to call her their aunt although she's actually their cousin.

On Paul's side there were nineteen and he's number seven. His two youngest sisters were born after he was living on his own, the eldest of which he paid for. Literally. He sent money home to pay the hospital bill for her birth. He has always teased her that she belongs to him since he wrote the check. His youngest sister came to live with us when she was fifteen and we assumed legal guardianship. My kids keep wanting to call her their sister but she's actually their aunt.

It can be confusing, frustrating, and downright exhausting at times. Now that everyone on both sides is an adult, it would be fun to spend time with each one, getting to know them better and sharing common interests. But the constraints of time, distance, and religion allow for limited interaction with some and almost none with others. They are scattered from the east coast to the west, Canada, Mexico, and even as far as Laos. Their beliefs range from Amish, Mennonite, Methodist, Baptist and more, to no church at all. Education levels range from eighth-grade to masters degrees, teachers, nurses, paramedics, farmers, truckers, missionaries, builders, and two who told me they would tell me what they do but then they'd have to kill me.

With such a large population, our families have tasted joy and sorrow in many forms. Someone is always getting married or having a baby, buying a house or moving out west. A few are struggling with cancer, with addictions, with the heart weaknesses and stiff limbs that come with age. I watch the kids, whose names I can't remember, bouncing off the walls with all the energy in the world while I see my older siblings slowing down, no longer immortal in my eyes, as they seemed to be when I was a child.

Family reunions are fun-filled and chaotic, a time to reconnect with those who choose to travel the distance to spend a few days together. From softball and volleyball to card games, water-balloon fights and the mandatory pinata for the kids, it's a time to lay down our differences and just remember what it means to be a family, to have blood-ties, to share the same heritage, good or bad.

Over the years there have been times when one or two forgot what’s important. When they would try to press their religious point of view on some poor soul they viewed as a heathen and therefore in need of some righteous correction. I’ve never seen this approach met with success in any form. Instead, it strengthened the current rebel’s stand and he or she either became more flamboyant in their worldliness or they shucked off the family like old underwear and refused to grace us with their presence at the next reunion. Paul, never one to keep quiet in the face of ignorance, always met the situations head-on. He has pointed out more than once to the current pharasee-at-large, in terms easy even for the simple-minded to understand, that family get-togethers are neither the time nor the place to display closed minds. Fortunately, whether from the maturity that comes with age and experience, or from the reluctance of the judgemental to suffer the same confrontation they enjoy heaping on others, these kinds of conflicts haven’t occurred in the past few years.

One year I started a family tree for each side, but after the sagging branches threatened to break, I gave it up. The exponential growth potential from two people who have produced nineteen others is . . .well. . . staggering. Especially when some of those nineteen also have large families. One sister-in-law told me years ago she planned to have a dozen. She almost made it. Paul, on the other hand, declared zero population growth as his goal. One to replace each of us, he said, and no more. And so it is.

The downside to large clans is that there’s no way to maintain a close relationship with more than a few of them. But then, there are small families, or so I’ve heard, that all hate each other. At least with such a large group to choose from, it’s easy to find a few we like who like us back. And on the upside, if we ever find ourselves homeless we could spend two weeks with each sibling and not visit more than once a year.