Time & Love / Laura Nyro Tribute
Having made a decision, I felt better. I would take care of the funeral following all her wishes. I would then refuse the executrix position, turning the estate over to one of the “cousins.”
The “cousins” were the people we considered family. My great-grandmother actually had two siblings: a sister and a brother. Her brother had two sons. One moved overseas. The other settled in Maine with his wife and had three children: J. B. and L. I remember visiting them in Maine only through pictures. But somewhere around the time I turned eight, he moved to University Park, Maryland for a government job.
From that point until I was in high school, we visited them for a week at least once a year. For me, those trips were special adventures. The mysterious “government job” seemed important and glamorous. D.C. was an exciting place with fabulous museums and monuments that one also saw on tv and in books. By that point J. was off to college, but B. was still around. She was the bohemian artist. Always with notebook or sketch pad in hand. She saw beauty in everything, protested war and wore scarves. Finally there was L. She was close to my age, and due to a medical condition short in stature. Her mother was a bit of a shrew, always harping on her too loose weight. Ultimately, the poor girl became anorexic, but from a child’s perspective, I thought we simply shared mother’s who could at time be unkind. I had companionship and another person I could relate to. Some summers, L. would come and spend two or three weeks with us “in the country.” We’d be bored together and try to kill time going for walks or discussing the personal life of David Cassidy. I was horribly jealous when her dad took her to a concert.
They lived in a nice house that was always neat in clean. So much so, kids were not allowed in the living room. They had a dog. A large oversized collie named Shawnee, who I loved. I cried for days when I found out the dog passed away. They were family.
To my child’s perspective a lot was put on to this. They looked like a family. Something my life didn’t have. They acted like a family, eating at home with a clean house, etc. Something my life didn’t have. We called them ‘family” and went to visit them, staying in their home and treating it like our own. Sure they had some eccentricities, and the mom was not really very nice, but families excused that. You loved your family unconditionally, and so, no matter what, I loved them.
Years later, when I excitedly invited all of them to my wedding and got only two RSVPs (B. and L.), I was disappointed. J. okay, I understood. He was married with kids then, in medical school. But the parents? No reply? I made excuses. They were older, busy, sent messages through Mother.
I tried to stay in contact a few times, but some how connections were never made and I was growing more and more disenchanted. A few years later, our paths crossed again. Angrily, I confronted E., the father. Tearfully, I said how much I thought of their family as my own and how it was their family that defined the concept for me. How I loved those D.C. visits, there influencing me to consider D.C. college options, and how hurt I was that he’d never met my husband. We lived only three hours away from each other by then and yet, never had contact.
E. was upset at the display, apologized and I accepted. He assured me he had no idea and that we would make plans to at least go to dinner. I was pleased when a few days later, his wife called and we set up a dinner date for a month later. I didn’t hesitate to agree that we would make the 2 hour trip to their house. No problem.
I was so excited. I spent the month telling M. stories about my experiences on our vacations and stories I heard over the years. The day of dinner arrived and it was all I could do to not leave hours early for our agreed upon meeting.
This turned out to be a good thing. Five minutes before we had to leave the house, the phone rang. It was E’s wife. She explained to me that J. was in town, and they were going to dinner with him. Not understanding at first, I thought she was calling to tell me the good news that the whole family would be together. No. She was calling to cancel, because they had gotten a better offer.
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