extended family
All about how to stay connected, strengthen ties and talk politics with your big, happy extended family.
For The Car
Now it was only an hour until visitor hours were over at the hospice. Cleanup at work took too long and now I am late for the bus. I sighed and checked my phone, squinting at the cracked and dimmed screen. It was a text from Mom saying she would be home late today again. “Alex, go ahead and fix yourself something to eat. And tell your uncle that I said hi.”
By Yoav Rosenberg5 years ago in Families
The man in the middle.
Soon after this photo was taken, by whom I do not know, he became my father. But I digress. If you read some of my earlier stories, you might recognize the photo above. Perhaps your imagination or curiosity compelled you to read further, and wonder about various characters or times pictured there.
By Frank Vandinther5 years ago in Families
Smooth Operator
Laughter sounds, a sop reverberating off floor and wall. It belongs to an older generation, a socialite generation. Air whooshes from lungs: wheezing, hiccupping, struggling to pass the epiglottis. It's a plural crowing, like air releasing sloppily from a hundred rubber balloons. There’s plenty of eccentricities to guffaw. Tonight is the 34th Annual Premier Pre-Holiday Season Dinner Party.
By Autumn Hughes5 years ago in Families
White Elephant
The Greenleaf family was an extended clan of alcoholics, producers of methamphetamines, riders of expensive motorcycles - respected for their reputations as both hard workers and brawlers. Meg’s uncle, after years of abuse, had killed his father during a fight in the kitchen. This killing, like the conflict in a band of mountain apes, propelled the young man to the positon of Greenleaf patriarch at the age of nineteen. His leadership was contested by a cousin, who was in turn blinded for life by a load of birdshot, collapsing in the front yard of the ramshackle house.
By Andrew Dabbs5 years ago in Families
The Man Who Was Always Never There
SON... The wind whipped and scuttled as Mother drew her last breaths, and I too felt as though I were mere moments away from drawing my own. It was the thought of losing her for good that provoked such dread. That coupled with the nostalgic drawl of the eastern gust sending the trees drubbing the windowsill beside the chair in which I sat.
By Jonathan Golemba 5 years ago in Families
A Day for Dying
“Dad hasn’t phoned since this morning,” Nora says to Freddie. Nora has been worrying about the lack of contact, turning it over in her mind, the entire time that Freddie has been talking about her next exhibition. Half-listening, Nora gathers that the paintings are to depict slaves, and she is thankful that Alistair is not in the room. But then, Freddie knows the rules – she would never discuss a topic like slavery if her father were present. She would have scooped up Jethro and left half an hour ago. Now, Freddie explains that she is applying for a grant to help fund her work.
By Zilla Jones5 years ago in Families
Mabel on Her Own
Mabel had insisted that she go to the Evergreen assisted living facility No way was she going to intrude into the lives of her children and grandchildren. Over the years, too often she had witnessed the strain in families when they lost their privacy, modified their routines, and made over their lives to accommodate returning adult children, often encumbered with child, or as would have been Mabel’s case, taking in an aging parent or grandparent who could no longer live alone. Too many stove burners left on, doors left unlocked, forgetfulness, and increasingly, falls, made it impossible for Mabel to continue to live in the brick rambler her husband Charles had built for her forty years before.
By Cleve Taylor 5 years ago in Families
Starlight
It was well past four in the afternoon when Alice finally gave in. She laid down on the worn attic floor and let out a breath that had felt lodged in her chest for at least the last half hour. She had been working since early that morning, steadily sorting through boxes and discarded furniture, setting aside what could be sold or donated and what needed to be thrown away while the June heat in the small attic became more and more cloying. Now, as the heat finally began to fade she found herself covered in sweat and dust and wincing against sore muscles all through her legs and arms and into her neck and shoulders. Truthfully, the ache she felt settle through her body as she finally paused in her labors felt like a blessing. It felt like relief. For the past few weeks, ever since her mother had called her to tell her of Aunt Agnes’s passing, Alice had been so terrifically, terribly numb. Rationally, she knew that she was grieving, but as hard as she tried she couldn’t access that grief. Instead, her body and her mind had gone into sleep mode while they searched for the bug, the faulty wiring, the pain that was there but wasn’t. So she lay there, dirty and sticky and aching, and let herself feel at least that until the last of the midday heat seeped from the room and the slightest chill made itself known along her forearms.
By Caitlin McQuade5 years ago in Families
Old Route in a New Era
Dear Aunt Hazel, Thank you for checking in! It really has been too long since we’ve talked. I do love how I can always expect a letter from you on my birthday. Snail Mail is such a forgotten form of communication. The older I get the more special it is to open up and see a beautiful, handwritten envelope, rather than a bill!
By Cherokee Vi5 years ago in Families
When Tomorrow Brings Uncertainty
Sam stared at the lifeless man lying in the coffin in front of him. For days, he had cried so hard that his eyes were red and swollen. His face was tired and tear-stained. His heart felt so hollow and disconnected from everything that he loved.
By Sonja Bloetner5 years ago in Families
