A Golden Thread

On the heels of a tremendously difficult year in 1983, my family and the families of Mom’s cousins all decided that when life hands you death, one should live more fully and by “fully” they meant v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n. “I don’t understand why we did that. We didn’t even have any money. Don’t ask me why, in God’s name, we decided to rent. We were SCRAMBLING to pay for that.” Mom recounts over coffee this morning. Aunt Margaret had passed that year and it was a shock to all of us, myself included. “I think there’s something wrong with Aunt Margaret.” I remember saying to Mom. We had all piled into a hotel room down the Cape for a small family reunion after one of Mom’s brothers, Uncle Timmy, had finally been found after not having heard from him for a while. I remember how frail he looked and wondered if he were sick. He died less than a year later. When Aunt Margaret lay down to “rest her eyes”, I worried. Not too long after, my cousin Carolyn and I were hiding under a table as paramedics arrived to take Aunt Margaret to the hospital. Her wake was the first I ever attended or at least the first that I can remember. “Doesn’t she look pretty?” Dad said as he held me in his arms in front of her casket. “Where are her glasses?” I asked as I peered down at her face. Surely she needed to see wherever she was going.

That year, Mom and her cousin Ginny both decided to rent a place for the month of August in Mattapoisett, a small town on the shores of Buzzard’s Bay. They had visited the town before to visit Connie, Ginny’s brother, who had come to know Mattapoisett through his wife, Jane. Something about Mattapoisett enchanted them, made them all fall in love. The air is different here, softer. Here, you settle more comfortably into your skin and the tiny muscles at the back of your jaw release. The seagrass boasts thousands of different colors as the sun rises and sets; the scent of beach roses fills the air alongside the salt and charcoal grills. Whatever it was that inspired them, these ladies made a choice that has altered the course of all our lives. Soon, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jerry joined in the fun with our cousins Kerry, Steve, and Carolyn (the “surprise” in her family like me). We have all grown very close over the years and now the elders watch as the children’s children skip through the water and sandbars at low tide and we cousins, mothers and fathers now ourselves, bless ourselves quietly as we watch them climb upon the rocks and jump off the pier. It must be awesome to see these descendants play.

Each August we reunite in Mattapoisett, even last year with Covid and all. Traditions are strong in our family and plagues are no match. We have weathered cancer, illnesses, surgeries, deaths, divorces, breakups, miscarriages, births, and menopause. On the beach and at tables on decks, they have counseled one another on just about anything. “I know the feeling.” I always hear Mom say whenever she talks to her sister and cousins. They are really all like siblings now and they will each go quickly to bat for one another as I would for them. “Where is she going to go?” I remember asking myself after Aunt Margaret died. As I sit here today, with daughter in my lap and Mom beside me on the deck with her iPad, filling me in with details as I write, I now know exactly where Aunt Margaret went. Through Mom, Peggy, Ginny, Connie, and Neisie, fibrous threads of gold have been pulled taut and now drop down like vines to all of us. Over the years, we children have braided together our own tapestry of life, forever connected by the strength of these women in our lives that began with the strength of all the women that came before. The men have stoically stood by and marveled at both the money and time spent, they share their own bond of having touched incandescent beauty through their choice of such imperfectly perfect partners in life. The sun is getting higher in the sky now, a new day at the beach beckons. Though the stress of packing up a multigenerational family of six was overwhelming at this time yesterday, I am now in awe of what I have been woven into. If the only thing I do in life is pass this strength forward through these words and to my own kin, I will have won.