Family Time

One definite perk of moving back home to the East Coast after 11 years in LA is that I get to feel connected with my past, my heritage, my family, etc.

This week was filled with events and coincidences that couldn't have happened if I still lived in LA.

On Thursday, my cousin needed to talk to me about some important issues in his life. He and I are one month apart. In fact, I'm the older one by about 5 weeks, although he's about 4 times my size and has been since birth. Anyway, when he needed the ear of someone who's known him a while, but isn't too wrapped up in his day-to-day life, I was there. I happened to be just a few towns over from where he was, so it was easy to get to him. We spent the night reminiscing and catching up... something we haven't done in years.

Yesterday, I went to a wedding with my mom's old friend from high school. The wedding was for the daughter of my mom's other school friend, so there were a few people from their home town of Beverly, MA.

First, I met a very nice man named Bobo. He's the widowed husband of my mom's old friend Marilyn Monroe (that's honestly her name - and she was born before Marilyn was famous, so it's just a coincidence.) In addition, there was a woman named Kathy who happened to be the widow of a man named Everett, who apparently was great friends with my dad. She said she'd been to my parents wedding in 1973. She could actually remember when the wedding was. And she asked me "Is your dad still so cute?" Hmm. Well, yes. Of course!

Later that night, I wound up at the Italian American Club in Beverly, MA, to see my mom's friend's son perform. That place is such a throwback! People were actually smoking indoors and I saw haircuts I haven't seen since 1979. I also saw my mom's first cousin Patrick, someone I haven't seen in about 10 years.

Pat was one of my mom's favorites, and he was a lot like her. Brilliant, somewhat misunderstood, a loner with a mind of diamonds.

Apparently he was top of his class in high school, but he went to Vietnam and like a lot of men in his situation, life wasn't as easy after that. If I had been a boy, would have been named Patrick and I'm sure he had something to do with that.

It was nice bumping into him and it reminded me that it feels good to be home.

Part of what I loved about living in LA was creating my own "home," my own family out of friends. I had "cousins" Mary and Marty, Tasha, Drew, Mike, Liz and Nancy. But they weren't my actual family, the one you don't choose. They were the family I chose. And being 3,000 miles away, I never randomly ran into distant (or not so distant) cousins.

Now that I'm hitting my mid-thirties, it's nice to be more "family-oriented" as they say. Hey, it might not last forever, but it's good to reconnect with everyone, remember my roots, so to speak.

But... I still miss cousin Marty and Mary and Tasha Drew, Nancy Liz and Mike and can't wait to see them mid-August! A different kind of family reunion...