Reunion

Dearest Iqbal-

I have just returned from a family reunion. Not my family, mind you, but the reunion of a good friend's family. I was to be his "plus 1," but upon breaking his toe, I had to go alone, like a stand in or alternate juror. My family sadly never reunites in this fashion, all in a picnic ground, each aunt or cousin bringing salty sandwiches and pink lemonade.

I arrived early, the field bare but for a spray of picnic tables, their rusty nails years ago hammered away. I sat on a table top, my feet on the seat and wondered how I was to perform at this function: I could be the friend of the absent family member, making introductions, apologizing for my outcast state, trying everyone's own recipes. Or I could forget that I didn't belong. Maybe if I willed belonging they would accept it and forget. The sky was so blue and the grass so green that I fell into a reverie in which distinctions like family and stranger, mother and sun, present and absent, seemed at best quaint.

I awoke from my day sleep when I began to hear the sound of children's voices being carried on the breeze. I peeled my eyes. The 4th generation was cresting the hill and descending into the flat that would soon house their family. Each child was brandishing an iron sword above their windy hair. One in particular, Samuel, led the charge, liberating the valley with the tip of his sabre. I smiled with irony when I discovered the swords to be palm fronds.

"We have the same eyes and I bet a cut a similar figure when I was his age," I thought as I rose to greet the hoard. I opened my arms and Samuel leapt into them, I hugging him and lifting him above my head.

"Have you been here long?" he asks.

"No, I just recently arrived. Where are the rest?" I looked around at the handful of children surrounding me, none coming higher than my chest, all clenching the palms.

"Oh they'll be along, they are bringing the food and table clothes and the chairs for Big Nana to sit in."

"Mama said that Big Nana's back is too squishy to to sit on this hard picnic tables" chimed in a girl with pimples and freckles.

"I like 'em just fine," intoned a boy with fiery red hair as he through his behind down on the chair whipping his legs up as he did.

"Now you do, but you're only 9, wait til you're 91 like Big Nana. We'll see how much you like the wood," said Samuel.

Before a fight could ensue all eyes were turned back towards the hill. Along came the third generation. They were young parents with glow and grace. They had all the vitality of their sworded scions but it was at peace, no anxiousness.

They came in pairs, each holding blankets or picnic baskets or glass pitchers of pink lemonade or foldable beach chairs. Their hands were full, except for Angela's. She walked in the center, like the icon being paraded, her hands gently resting on her dome-like middle. The others of the 3rd generation walked slowly, matching pace with the graceful mother to be.

As they came closer, Iqbal, I could see their cheeks flushed with blood and their hair reflecting the sun like brunette mirrors. It was a sight. The children ran to them and surrounded them and I watched with mild jealousy. The fresh adults came to the tables and begin to spread their blankets on the grass and smooth their table clothes on the wood.

They paid me no notice; they were too busy setting up their food and making pleaseantries with their children. At last, deciding that I needed to begin somewhere to ingratiate myself into this family I approached the woman with-child and offered to help her. She seemed not to hear me as she struggled to lower herself to the seat. Once down and at rest she glanced up and said no, but offered me a sandwich.

Her face let me know it was fine to say yes, and I did, but I insisted on retrieving it myself with her instruction. The sandwich was cold and delicious, but before I could compliment all eyes seemed to focus past me, back to the hill. I could see nothing at first, and then just a grey quivering. From below the horizon emerged sets of lumbering elders, some carrying newspapers, some carrying umbrellas, others cradling bibles.


They came slowly, taking each step, watching the grass beneath their feet bend to their weight and then spring back as if they'd never been. Grandpa Earl came leading his two lambs. Grandma Petunia emerged, Bible open and her lips gliding over the book of Ecclesias, mumbling to no one. Great Aunt Edna, shielding her eyes from the sun and yelling "Oh my darlings, oh my darlings" upon seeing the circle of children. Grandpa Christopher with a parasol protecting his bald head.


Uncle Isak emerged. I learned later that no one knew who's Uncle he was, but everyone called him that. He wore a pince nez that had reduced at least 2 if not 3 generations to laughter and glee. There were handshakes and hugs and "peace-be-with-yous" and promises of visits. No one bothered that I didn't belong. Iqbal, I was happy, and little did I know it'd just begun!


I sat under a tree with Granpa Earl.


"Weather is fine, no?" he asked.


"Sure is, not a cloud in the sky." I looked at the lambs, their legs tucked neatly under their wooly bodies, asleep.


"You seem contented. May I photograph you?"


"Surely." He took out a camera and without moving from his repose against the tree snapped my photo.


"That'll be a good one, no?"


Grandpa Earl again put the camera to his eyes and aimed it up. I followed the lens to the pregnant woman, her hands resting on her bump.


"You better take a picture Earl, it'll last longer," she said with a sweet weariness.


"It takes all kinds, this camera. Where is your husband, Angela? He should be along soon?"


"Any moment he should be here, with Big Nana."


"So good of him. You've met Robert, no?"


Angela smiled at me. "Yes, we've met."


I leapt to my feet and wiped the grass off. Grandpa Earl laughed. "No need to stand, my boy, she's pregnant not dying!" He chuckled.


Everyone, even the hard of hearing, started when Samuel screamed. At first it was formless, no sense of joy or distress or color, just noise. My eyes settled on the boy and then followed the pointed end of his palm frond out over the field to the hill. There standing on the crest were two men, and between them a shapeless mass taking small, pained steps.

"Big Nana! Big Nana is here!" All three generations shuffled their repose and prepared for her arrival, here was the 1st generation.


As they came closer I could see: a tall, youngish man with broad shoulders and a large forehead, and an ageless Priest who seemed to walk from his temples, and between them Big Nana, a round, sexless object, all folds of skin and intimations of extremities under her gown. She walked slowly, taking deep breathes between each step. She was guided under the tree, beside the lambs to the chair prepared for her. She settled into it, the young men lifting her legs onto the rest. She exhaled and smiled, old wrinkles being subsumed and new ones being revealed as the ends of her mouth lifted.


The generations gathered around her, but not too close as to hamper her vision or breathe. The priest stood off the side, very much at home. The young man who had walked Big Nana went over to this wife and placed his hand on her dome of a stomach. I was so taken aback by their youth and health that I must have stared, for she called me over and introduced me to her husband.


I began to mingle, stepping in and out of conversations.


"Did you know that Shelby Foote and Walker Percy went to visit William Faulker? Drove across Tennessee and Mississippi and when they got there Walker Percy wouldn't get out of the damn car."


"What? He's never seen a depressed alcoholic before?"


"I swear to you, my love, that when we shave the lambs, even down the skin, they don't feel an ounce of pain. Think of how nice you feel in the summer when you get your long hair cut off!"


"But you must grant, it's pretty humiliating for them. Would you want to go around naked?"


"Why yes, I would. But you wouldn't want me to."


"Did you taste Mary's pink lemonade? A bit bitter for my taste, I'd say. Makes my lips purse."


"I think Big Nana likes it."


"Do you imagine you could even tell if her lips were pursing?"


"I quite liked Father Tully's sermon today, no?"


"Yes, it was uplifting, as it should be on a day like this. I think a priest should always take his cues from G-d. When it's dark and stormy and the windows rattle, well then feel free to tell us about hell and damnation and smashing of perfectly fine idols. But when the weather is as it is today, why it's a sin to break the spell."


"Do you remember Father Howell? He went blind towards the end."


"Why yes I do. Never cared much for his type of prostration."


"Not a cloud in the sky."


"I don't remember our children being so poorly behaved."


"Right, but then Big Nana's husband was there, and who would have dared misbehave?"


"I often wondered how she put up with such a man. Never seemed to have a bit of humor, good or funny, in his body."


"Maybe he didn't seem so, but he must have, for look around, look at all the good humor around you. This all came through him."


"Oh I suspect it passes through the mother."


"Do you imagine Father Tully will speak?"


"If tradition holds."


"Who is that Robert? The one sitting with Uncle Edgar?"


"Oh I believe he's a friend of Thomas.'"


"Shame he couldn't be here."


"Well, whoever he is, he's family today."


"Little Samuel seems to have taken a liking to him."


"Indeed. In fact if I didn't know he was a man apart from us I'd swear him and Samuel were of the same brood."


"Did you hear Cousin David is marrying an episcopalian?"


"Oh my! What are those even?"


"They're like Methodists, but a little fancier, I think."


"Methodists? I have a method, thank you very much. Early to bed, early to rise."


"Yes, but your method puts me to sleep."


"Oh God, the Father is getting up to speak."


"I promise, I promise I will only speak for a moment or two. I promise."


The crowd settled, the children sat, Big Nana focused her eyes.


"I am of course not a part of this family, but for a great many years, I, and before me my predecessor at St. Agnes', has been invited here to join in this annual event. And it is one the purest pleasures to see members of my flock with their flock, all of us together in this beautiful place, on this beautiful day. Before I move on to a brief reading, I want to publicly wish my best to dearest Angela and David, blessed will they be with a child. Blessed are they and blessed will that child be."


They was a round of approval and mild applause. "Upon us will soon be a new generation, a blessing to all generations. And, lastly, it would be negligent of me to not show my respect and undying admiration to our matriarch, Ann."


"Yay! Big Nana!" cried Samuel with no hint of self-consciousness. Oh Iqbal, I was green.


"And lastly, I will be brief, but it would behoove us not to acknowledge. If you please, take hands, but only if you please."


I quickly positioned myself between a 7 year old girl and an old man.


"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into God's presence with singing!
Know the Lord is God! It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations."


A round of applause rose and fell.


With a smile, Father Tully continued: "G-d's neat, let's eat!"


Merriment ensued and gifts were presented. Uncle Isak was given a silken handkerchief, embroidered with his initials (U.I., of course) to polish his pince nez, little cousin Julie was presented with a doll that miraculously closed it's eyes when you laid her down, and Big Nana was presented with the most colorful, hand sewn quilt one has ever seen. Each square was a different texture and color and luminosity and feel. Bright greens, and pink polka dots, and blue silk, and red angels on a white background, and barn yard animals, and yellows like the sun. Big Nana's eyes opened wide and her leather hands brushed from square to square. Occasionally cooing, her eyes widening when she came across a particularly colorful or pretty pattern. Big Nana, with help, wrapped the quilt around her so only her round, shapeless head stuck from it. She smiled. Samuel beamed.


Oh Iqbal, I know that Zanzibar must hold endless wonders, but this was nice too.


-Robert de Saint-Loup