The last few years I have thought more and more about the distance my small family lives from the rest of our extended relations. I was born, and for my first four years lived, in southern Ontario. My wife was born here in Alberta, but only shortly after her parents also moved from Ontario. Unknown to either one of us for the longest time, most of the people we're related to live within four hours of each other, but way the hell and gone on the other side of the country.
The poignancy of this was driven home last spring went Amy and I took our then one year-old on a road show out east, ostensibly to celebrate the 80th birthday of my maternal grandmother, which party consumed only a couple days of the two weeks we spent. The rest of our time was divided between the balance of my relations and my wife's, imposing on relatives who welcomed us with open arms and pantries. (The "R" is very important in that last word.)
Until then, I had always asserted that I had been content - preferred, even - to be raised three provinces away from the place of my birth. We made at least annual pilgrimages back to the homestead for the first decade or so, my mother going so far as to ship my brother and me off alone for the summer a couple times. As we got older the trips decreased in frequency, and there was one stretch where it was five years I went without seeing anybody but my parents and brother with whom I shared blood.
Every family has a set of quirks that are unique to it, or seem to be when viewed from the inside. Seeing those from a distance, I was just as happy to be separated from them and raised away from the 'corruptive' influence of some of my crazier family members. That was my thinking at the time. I come from a very traditional German Catholic stock, and my vigorous religious ambivalence would not have gone over very well so much closer to the hub. I have an aunt who for the longest time (she may still) claimed to be under the protection of the Shield of Christ.
I grew up a proud Westerner; I have a neck that's managed to avoid most of the ruddy pigmentation so prevalent 'round these here parts, but neither have I been immune to the ubiquity of the sentiment of Western Alienation that settled out here long before I did. Being four when we moved, I have no direct memories of living out east other than vague images of a fenced-in backyard, an Afghan hound dog dumber than a sack o' hammers and, strangely, a bathroom sink that had separate hot and cold water faucets. (Wry thoughts about my dad's tales of parking across from the local Italian Community Hall and shouting, "Hey, Tony!" He always got a kick out of that.)
What I didn't think much about, until last year, was what else I may have missed, being so far away. We wouldn't have had to hop a plane in an emotional rush, after an early morning phone call, to make it to my grandfather's funeral to say farewell and for me to act as impromptu pall-bearer at 14 years. There are some few of my relatives who aren't as crazy as the others, and those relationships would certainly have borne more fruit than they have so far. I've grown up not knowing my cousins by much more than name and face, and a few e-mails with one who happens to be a Star Wars fan. Plus a gay cousin with whom I exchanged a brief flurry of e-mails wherein he catalysed the healing process after the implosion of my first engagement.
The image that brings it all home for me is that of my son sitting in the grass in the backyard of my Uncle Tom's house in the afternoon on the day we feted my grandmother. Declan clutched a football tightly to his chest and looked up into the faces of half a dozen teen-aged second cousins who vied for his attention. The details of that picture are indelibly etched into my mind. I was a little sad at the prospect of leaving that setting. The afternoon, a couple days prior, we pulled up in front of my uncle's house to hug, unpack and usurp his master bedroom for a week was fraught with more sentiment and nostalgia than I could have guessed.
Since our second son came along, both great-grandmothers have expressed their regret at not yet having seen him other than in pictures, and it will be up to us to head back east for an encore show-n-tell. For reasons of health, both great ladies are unable to make the venture west. I'd like to do that trip again next year for another opportunity to see four generations together in the same room. And for other reasons.
The Catch-22 is that I'd never have met my wife or had these beautiful boys with her if I still lived out east. And it's the fact of having this family that I now pine a little for more of my own. Which makes regret quite impossible.
So, no regret; a little yearning though. It's just so goddamn humid out there!
