"Traditions, Traditions!"

Families are funny. Extended families are the bomb! My mom and my dad's side's of the family are so different from each other that it's a wonder that they could produce two people who fit so well together. I guess that's the great thing. You have a family of people who all fit together, each one is unique but they fit, and then they grow up and get married. My dad went off and found my mom. She fits perfectly with him but she's nothing like the rest of my dad's family. All of my dad's siblings did this. And there are eight of them. So this week, eight beautiful and unique families gathered at my grandparents house to celebrate the life of my grandma. It's been over ten years since all of them have been together. There was one cousin, one aunt (married in) and a few cousins-in-law missing but all grandma's children were there. It was an interesting and varied group, knit together by love. I looked around the room and I knew every one's name. A few people had to ask what my name was but that didn't matter. Everyone seemed relaxed. What ever happens for the rest of the year, however little we have in common otherwise, we still belong to each other. We have a few precious shared memories and they pull us together. When one person cries, it's hard not to cry with them.
There were tears in plenty. And though they hurt they were not a bad kind of tears. You can't bring up old wounds or inflict new ones at a funeral. You can only heal them. There was much grieving and much healing. And a healthy does of laughter and good times mixed in.
All the family traditions were present and accounted for. We gathered round the piano down stairs and had a wonderful time singing and playing. The sound of acoustic guitar and the voices of my uncles bring with them memories that I was not even aware of. I was humming along and singing when I knew the words and my sister leaned over and asked wonderingly "You know this song?" Well, I don't think I could tell you what it's called and I don't know all the words but the sounds form on my tongue and the notes are deep inside me, easily accessible, as music always is. It's the sound of a time that my younger sisters don't remember, when some of us lived closer together and came up to Omak more often. Suddenly I remember siting on the floor and listening. It's part of my childhood and I'll always have those songs in me.
Some of us cousins compared games we all played in Grandma and Dada's basement. It turns out everyone slid down the stairs on their backsides at one time or other. My sisters and I were the only ones who played Pooh Sticks at the bridge over the ditch in the orchard. So we shared that tradition with some of the other cousins and their children. How could you not play Pooh Sticks? It would be like not sliding down the stairs.
Every one had a camera or three. The boys all talked computers and cars. Every one brought something special and every one was there to truly BE with one another. I sat and eat and talked with cousins I had never spoken more than three words to before. A funeral forces you to remember that the chance to be together comes only rarely and lasts only a short time. Everyone wanted to be a family. The eight and more families meshed again into one big family.
I love funerals.

Grandma is proud.