My new favorite picture is the wallpaper on my phone now. It was made at a get-together of assorted kinfolks a few weeks ago and reflects years of bonding in our blended family.
It is a photo of our eight-year-old granddaughter Allie holding our two-year-old great grandson Hudson. They are forehead-to- forehead, nose-to-nose, looking eye-to-eye with glowing smiles.
Their lives and those of many others in the merged families became intertwined through second marriages. Allie is from Regina’s side of the family, and Hudson is from mine.
The bloodlines might not match up, but the ties are close and strong. The differences in ancestry have been erased by pure love and so many good times and experiences together.
Exact relationships between children, grandkids and others from different marriages are for genealogists to figure out. Allie tries to assign titles to her mixture of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and other kin but ends up just calling them all “my family.”
There are no step-fathers, step-mothers, cousins twice removed or anything like that. I’m Poppy to all the young folks and Regina is Gigi.
The image I see on my phone many times a day shows only a split second of a boisterous gathering in Baton Rouge the day of an LSU football game.
Getting the picture installed as the background on the phone was a technological feat that defies my understanding, but it was a piece of cake for a third grader like Allie.
Those hours together that day reminded us of the many other times when generations of this family have congregated. Like the frequent beach trips for sand, surf, shrimp boils and sunburn.
And the Christmastime celebrations at our house that have helped unify these loved ones who are related by birth, marriage or some other means.
They gather on the patio with their guitars, microphones and amplifiers for back-yard concerts, dancing and singalongs after gumbo dinners and holiday desserts.
Not long after the family conclave in Baton Rouge, Regina and I got away to the Ozarks. It was September and turning cool in the mountains before the heat subsided here. Our time alone was nice, but reminders everywhere of grandkids made us miss them.
Coffee in the mornings on the balcony over Lake Taneycomo was relaxing but not as much fun as those many times the girls stormed into the bedroom to wake us up to have breakfast with them.
We remembered how our youngest, Charlee Ann, was just starting to take a few steps on one of our Branson trips. She was walking everywhere by the time we left.
The train that rolled along the brick streets of the mall with bells and whistles going reminded us of all those times we rode in the caboose with the kids because that was their favorite seat.
All of us have been to the Dolly Parton Stampede thing together so many times that the kids mouth the words to the dialog during the shows. When they go to the stables afterwards to pet the horses, they know them all by name.
We have been together at Silver Dollar City during every season, sweating, shivering or looking for shelter from rainstorms between rides.
Many of Regina’s relatives from her first marriage are scattered through the mountains of Arkansas and Missouri. Visits with them have provided more relationship puzzles for Allie and the others to piece together.
Regina and I traveled there often to take her former mother-in-law out for meals and church services. Later, relatives from different branches of this big, amalgamated family gathered on a frigid day for her funeral.
There was a family dinner after the burial was delayed until the ground thawed. As the food was blessed, our grandkids held hands in a circle with kinfolks they had been with before and some they had never met but were glad to get to know.
Allie’s reaction when she learned that we were gathering in Baton Rouge was the same as it is every time she finds out blood relatives and those from different marriages are about to get together. “I can’t wait to see my family,” she says.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES