March 24, 2003
I’M NOT POSTING ABOUT THE WAR. MICHAEL MOORE SAID IT ALL.
I didn’t watch the Academy Awards. Neither did I watch the news for the past two days. I was attending my uncle’s funeral. He was 89 years old.
Sixty-five years ago, my family and extended family was its own tribe. A photo on my mother’s wall shows almost 60 people lined up in four tiers to document a going-back-to-Poland party for my great “Uncle the Priest” (or “Wójek the Priest,” which is how my mother still identifies him).
Some forty years or so ago, when my other uncle died (of stomach cancer when he was in his forties), there were hundreds of cars in his funeral procession. My father (who was the funeral director) had to ask for a police escort to avoid serious traffic problems as the long line of motorized mourners inched their way through the dense city streets.
Yesterday, my uncle also had a police escort, but he only had seven cars. (This time, there were police escorts only because my Polish female cousins keep marrying Irish police officers. My uncle’s son-in-law is one of them.)
The tribe has dwindled to my mother, a few other extended-family aunts and uncles, and the handful of cousins and spouses who have not yet moved too far away to return for funerals.
I left the tribe when I was 17 to go to college, and I never went back. In general, I have little in common these days with most of my cousins – they tend to be more politically conservative and like to take off for weekends in Atlantic City or Las Vegas. They have less formal education and more money than I do; are all married or re-married (except for one who’s a widow); and they don’t read the same books that I do. They all live within a radius of 50 miles from where they were born (forsaking the deteriorating inner city where we all grew up for the more comfortable and affluent suburbs). We see each other at weddings and funerals. These days, it’s mostly funerals. Our conversations usually end after we’ve caught each other up on where our kids are and what they’re doing. Those who are so inclined take the opportunity to brag about their world travels or their profitable investments. I tell them that I still write but haven’t been doing much ballroom dancing lately. And, of course, this time I show them my grandson’s photos.
As we sit together at my uncle’s wake, very aware of how few of us all are left, we begin remembering details of our shared childhoods growing up in our four square-block tribal ghetto -- their fathers going off to war (not mine; as an undertaker and oldest son, we was deferred); the summers with our mothers at the ocean cottage (the fathers came out on weekends). What I have forgotten, someone else remembers and vice versa. We start using Polish words that we didn't even knew we remembered. (We all grew up bi-lingual). Our laughter is ignored by the remaining tribal elders, who are engaged in their own hearing-impaired reminiscences.
Later than night, as my mother, brother, and I sit with the cousins at whose house we are staying and watch a DVD that my brother has made from old 16mm home movies from the 40s, I feel, again, the pull of family, of our shared history, our shared blood. We are kindergarteners again, skipping along in our Easter hats and Mary Janes's, holding each other's hands as our young mothers trot protectively behind us. And then it is the blizzard of 1947, and we are piled onto my Flexible Flyer and sliding down the middle of Riverview Street. And then it's Christmas, and our birthdays, and Christmas again, and each time there's another aunt or another cousin added to our ranks.
And then there I am with the one aunt I never got to know well enough because she and my uncle (the Merchant Marine captain) didn't stay with the tribe very long after they were married. She was an artist, with long black hair and dramatic eyes who painted her kitchen ceiling black, began to teach me how to draw faces, and sewed me a red lace-trimmed house coat for Christmas that was my favorite piece of clothing for years after. I think that I subconsciously made her my role model; she was so unlike everyone else I knew. She and my uncle had a slew of kids, I'm told, but they are cousins whom I've never met. They are not in these home movies. And she is only there for a few seconds. And then it's another birthday, and all of the other cousins are pinning tails everywhere but on the donkey.
to be continued...
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Old Comments (1)
Betsy Devine on 25 Mar 2003
Elaine, I am sorry about your uncle, but I love reading about your tribe. I grew up in an Irish tribe in NH--not quite as big as yours, but NH is a small place. There is something wonderful about seeing old pictures and movies you had forgotten. They have a freshness that familiar old pictures lose. That's why I'm glad I'm a bit disorganized--I'll be uncovering lost photos until the day I die....