Aunt dies at 82...
She left 3 kids, 10 grand children and one great-grandson. They said that she was always childish. I guess some periods in your life you should be serious, that is at least what I was lead to believe. I am not sure who lead me to believe that - someone in the family, but I can't trace it to anyone in particular. Juana was 82 and smoked all her life. I don't think that the smoking was a big health problem for her. Some people cough and wheeze as they get older, she didn't. All the kids liked her because she cooked great simple food that kids like. There is a picture of my family eating at her place spaghetti and meat balls before flying to America in 1973. I don't remember that meal but remember that whatever we ate there was comforting - the way it should feel eating at a family's home. To some it is not that important, I think because they never had it, that feeling of being at an extended family home and that everything feels comfortable.
Waiting for the funeral. I didn't count but there were more than 50 maybe even 80 people. From the aunts and cousins there were about 20, the rest were friend and in laws from her grand children.
So what makes for a close family? Juana left a few clues, one is being close geographically. All the children live at most 30 minutes by car. The other is "just doing the normal family stuff". Just before Juana died her daughters planned on picking her up at 7 AM for a family BBQ. Family gathering and all the preparation of food, place, transport - that everyday stuff that finally gets 20 or 50 people to a dusty bench in a park seems to make a family in these modern times. Each family has it's own rituals. Some are simple and some are complex, but without these rituals it seems like we are not keeping our lives together. It's easy to drift off in today's world, there are too many "better" things to do than eat with the family.
Burial of Juana, 30 April 2009. // The other ingredient in a close family is "don't pretend". This sounds simple but it is not. It seems to me that most people pretend in some way. Some pretend that they are more than they are and some pretend that they are less. Some try to be more fancy or classy then the rest. I think that is what makes people comfortable with you. Pretending simply makes people uncomfortable which is what families end up with. Somehow in my family we have this range of comfort level, from places you can go and just sit for a while for coffee to homes that you feel comfortable for an event all the way to places which you don't even go. I happen to live in a time and place where there was just a little more of the comfort places. Sad to see a little piece of it gone, but good to know that it was there.
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