The Extendeds

(This picture isn't even "most" of us. It's just those who happened to be at 611 at that moment.)



I rarely think about my family as extending beyond my mother/father/sister. I’m wrong for this because there are some fantastically wonderful people beyond this little collective. I’m one of those people who has an extremely big extended family. My father is the second oldest of 11, and my mother has 9 brothers and sisters. Many of my aunts and uncles have five or six children, and I’m at the age where most of my cousins are parents. My favorite cousin is a grandfather at 41. I’m not sure, but I don’t think he’s alone.

Of the two sides … hmmm, how do I say this (?) … I’m much “closer” to my father’s half of the family. They’re centered in Philly, get along for the most part, and have a lot of characters that are an absolute joy to sit down and have a conversation with. As a group, his brothers and sisters have been through just about every scenario you can imagine. And collectively, they’re Invictus. (If you’re new to this blog, that’s a bit of an inside joke, sorry. Maybe one day you’ll catch up. )

More importantly, their conquering souls have become unflappable. It doesn’t matter what problem, or issue, or situation you show up to Philly with, nobody blinks. They’ve seen everything.

EVERYTHING.

Got a new woman, not like the old one? Bring her. She can dredge chicken.

Old one still wanna hang out? Hell, she can come too. She can fry.

Got a new son, new daughter that you didn’t know you had? Bring him. He can jump on the bed with 15 cousins of varying ordinals, under the watchful eye of Uncle Randy, who’s seen this all before, and will just slide the bed closer to the wall so none of the littlest hit the floor and go back to half-reading his book.

Been fighting with drugs, alcohol, or some wacky addiction nobody’s ever heard of? No excuses---bring ya ass home from rehab. We don’t care about that shit. Think you’re the first one to puff, puff, pass? Doubt it.

Cops after you? It’s prolly not a good idea to hide around the children. They’re upstairs jumping on the bed. Want some chicken?

Want some advice? Ask the question out loud, somebody standing in THIS room has been there before, and if nothing else … they can tell you what NOT to do.

Doing good things on the straight and narrow? College going well?? Fantastic! Happy for you. Welcome Home! You might want to avoid the hide-out, and the downstairs rooms for awhile.

I didn’t appreciate this about the Pop side of the family fully, until the boy King “M" and I made our first visit.

This is no Huxtable bunch. These aren’t the Brady’s, or the Seavers, or even the Jeffersons.

This is the crowd that parties with the Evans clan. We know those other people, and some of them came from us.

You can visit them in the Hamptons or whatever, but when they come HOME … to West Philly, they come to dance in the living room at 611, drink in Uncle Carl’s kitchen, and eat Aunt Dallas’ fried chicken.

More importantly, THIS is a group that knows what love is. Over the years, they’ve had some real knockdown, drag-outs, but for the most part, they are ALL on cordial terms. They play cards together, drink whiskey together, dance together, talk together, visit each other, and LOVE each other.

I don’t visit West Philly as often as I should, but that’s completely MY fault. It hearkens back to the very first sentence of this blog, and as I get smarter, my visits will become more frequent. I ALWAYS have a good time when I go to Philly.

By contrast, my mom’s people are …

Hmmmm

different.

They’re from Daphne, a teeny, tiny town outside Mobile, Alabama. My grandfather was a farmer/builder/jack-of-all-trades. He died at the start of my ninth grade year. I miss him. He was a giant of a man, and for my money, he was the only thing that ever tied me to the place.

His children seem to migrate between Daphne and Ithaca, New York – a town I have no real desire to visit again.

To call his children, and my relatives “country” is simplistic and unkind. For those reasons, I won’t do it … although I think it would be the truest moniker. But I’m 34, and I don’t have ONE good memory to relay about that whole half of who I am.

The details aren’t important, except to say that we’re just not close. None of them has ever harmed, or attemped to harm me. I’m sure they are good people, and I credit them as such from afar.

I haven’t visited Daphne since … hmmm, my ninth grade year. My mother still has brothers and sisters I’ve never met. I presume they were in Ithaca when I was came down for the funeral. Or worse, we were in the same room, at the funeral, and no one bothered to point out who was family, and who was just a well-wisher. My life is cheapened for lack of that knowledge.

On Friday, one of my mother’s brothers died. He’s battled a long illness and the family had been expecting him to pass any day. I’m sorry for his loss. Truly.

And I’m going to drive to upstate New York to say hello to my mom, even though I no longer attend funerals. It will be my first visit with her side of the family since I was 13. I’m a bit nervous.