It’s Family Reunion Time

We had the Ward Family Reunion today. This is my Mother’s family. We had the first reunion in 20 years last year and everyone had such a good time that we were back again for more this year. The best part is my Uncle Don has a house on a lake in Coldwater with a huge yard which is perfect for our large family.

There were two reasons we hadn’t had a reunion in so long. One was my grandmother passed away in 1993 and had been ill for four years before that. Grandpa had already been gone for 18 years so now both heads of the family were gone. It’s amazing how you start losing contact with relatives when the person who knew everything about everybody is gone. The other reason was that the relatives are spread far and wide which seems to be true of every family now, so it was just harder for everyone to get back home. What made all of us decide to have a reunion was that one of Mom’s siblings passed away and that generation felt time was swiftly passing and they might not get another chance to see everyone.

My Mother’s family was prolific. She had three siblings and when they started having children the numbers really jumped. The four of them had 22 children. When their children started coming we hit 54 grandchildren. The next generation is still growing. I saw a one year old, three new babies and children of other ages at the reunion today. When you add spouses of the siblings, children, and grandchildren we have quite a group.

The interesting part of the reunion was how people treated each other. Uncle Ken started right out picking on me. He has not changed. When I was a little kid I thought he was so mean. Now I just laugh. I guess he is old enough now that I can say oh, well, that is just Uncle Ken. My sister came into the kitchen and said oh, my, I feel like I am 12 again. Two male cousins were teasing her and picking on her like they used to do when we were all kids. Oh, guess what, they are Uncle Ken’s kids. Enough said about that. Several of my cousins weren’t there (remember there were 22 of us). I heard a lot of comments like I wish Laurie were here, she was always my favorite. Or, where’s Greg, he was my buddy?

My Aunt Eunice has been doing the family genealogy for many years now. She brought all her books with the family trees from both of my grandparent’s sides and pictures from my grandparents as babies up to the present generation. Each of us spent time searching through those books. It was an odd feeling when my aunt said she was passing the family legacy of all those pictures on to her children. My daughter said she could scan the pictures so we could distribute them to everyone so that will be our next project.

Last year when everyone hadn’t seen each other in so long there seemed to be a lot of polite, how are you, kind of talk. This year people felt more comfortable and we were learning a lot more about what all the relatives were doing and had done with their lives. One cousin has a hot air balloon, another is going to college for the first time at age 57, a second cousin packed up her bags for “an opportunity of a lifetime” at age 19 and moved to New York City (oh, to be young and adventuresome), an in-law cousin is living with an aneurysm, there was one wedding, many graduations, and lots of babies.

Several of the female cousins got together and planned some fun things for next year. Uncle Don wants to continue having the reunion at his house and wants the yard full of people. As for me, I’m thinking after 59 years of being picked on by Uncle Ken, it’s time for some sweet revenge.

My best friend died when I was 43 and she was 46. Sixteen years have gone by and I miss Ann as much today as I did when she died. Ann had been fighting breast cancer for 8 years. Every two years another spot would show up which entailed more surgery and more chemo. Then, she would be in good health for two years until cancer showed up again.

Our friendship started in 1979 a few weeks after Dave and I moved to Nashville. Ann was the dental hygienist in the local dentist’s office. I had gone in to get my teeth cleaned. When Ann was finished she asked me if my family which at that time consisted of my husband, Dave and my two year old son Matthew would like to come to her house for dinner. I accepted and that was the beginning of a close friendship. At the time of our first get together Ann and Tom also had a two year old, Holly. We both ended up each having two more children who were close to the same ages.

Because our children were all the same ages Ann and I got each other involved in many activities at school, at church and in the community. We were involved in girl scouts, cub scouts, harvest festival, little league, floor hockey, collecting for the March of Dimes, Sunday School, Bible School, preschool, room mother, PTA, painting murals in the church, etc, etc. If it involved our kids we were there. Ann could never say no. She was 8 months pregnant when she camped with the girl scouts and 9 months pregnant when she collected door to door for the March of Dimes.

She was the kind of friend who knew what you were thinking and knew your whole history. The hardest part after she died was not being able to pick up the phone and say do you know what happened, such and such. In fact, I went to the phone many times before I realized she wouldn’t be there any more.

The most enjoyable times in my life were the evenings for two years before she died. We decided we didn’t have enough friend time together and since all the kid’s activities were done by 9:30pm we would walk every night at 9:30pm. In two years I would say we only missed 8 nights. We walked in the rain and in the snow. One time we had umbrellas but the rain was coming at an angle. By the time we got done with our nearly four mile walk we were soaked to the skin. Even my underwear was soaking wet. We could only laugh. Another time it was snowing these big, fluffy snow flakes. We both looked like the abominable snow man by the time we got home. The funniest time (not at the time) was when we had almost arrived at Ann’s house after our four mile walk. The last thing we had to do was climb a big hill and walk a block south. At the top of the hill in the middle of the road was the biggest, blackest, most ferocious barking dog we had encountered on our walks. We had encountered many barking dogs in two years. Our normal course of action was I would yell loud and deep and tell them to get out of here and they would go. Not this dog. We yelled, we screamed and he stayed right there. There was no going around him. We had to go back down that hill and walk another mile back the way we had come to change our course and get home. We never saw him again but that night he changed our path. Those two years of walking were some of the nicest times Ann and I spent together. It was just the two of us talking through all of our problems and all of our joys.

When the cancer came back the last time the doctor told Ann she had two weeks to live. I thought how can a doctor predict after eight years that Ann only has two weeks left. Ann lived three weeks. Those were the toughest three weeks of my life but in another way they were the best gift God could have given me. Ann was busy getting her affairs in order and I was able to tell Ann how much she meant to me. We don’t usually get a gift like that. Every morning I would also stop by and she would have me deliver something to someone or run an errand or get rid of something. I spent the rest of my day crying. At night as I lay there crying I remembered so many Bible verses that I didn’t even know I knew. God truly was there with me. The day they delivered the hospital bed and had to set it up in the middle of Ann’s family room I knew that was the end. Ann would never put her family out by having them walk around her in her bed. She died that night.

One thing Ann had especially asked me to do was take care of all the things in her dresser. She didn’t want anyone sorting through her things. After she died I talked to her husband and told him what she had said. He said he knew but was not ready for me to take care of her dresser yet. Tom never did let me do that and I wish he had. I told my husband that if anything happened to me he was to take my dresser and everything in it out in the yard and burn it. I knew how Ann felt, I didn’t want anyone sorting my stuff either.

Ann was loved by the whole town and especially the children. Word spread quickly around school that she was gone. It was a sad day at Maple Valley.

The funeral was at our church. The local funeral director was so loving toward me. He allowed me to organize things and get the church ready and make sure all was set. Ann had said no flowers, she wanted all money donated. That sounded all well and good but when I was arranging things I kept looking at the flowerless altar. The prayers started again and by the time people started arriving flowers did too. I had been helping Pastor Hynes with funerals for some time. He asked me if I wanted to help him with Ann’s funeral. I was to do the reading and the children’s story. He asked me if I wanted to speak about Ann. Oh, I wanted to, but I didn’t know if I would be able to. He said come up with a list of words that describe Ann. I did that and at the service I was able to get through part of them before Pastor Hynes had to take over.

A week after Ann’s funeral I still couldn’t stop crying. I would cry as I pulled out of my driveway because so many times Ann was driving by on her way to work as I pulled out and we would wave. I would cry at Sunday school class. I would cry just thinking about Ann being gone. I was crying at the grocery store and a friend stopped me. She said you can choose how you grieve your friend. You can cry all the time or you can remember her with joy and celebrate her life. From then on I quit crying and celebrated the life of my friend, Ann.

　By Kathy Mace

Dave and I have been back in Michigan for almost three weeks. The transition from Florida to Michigan is not easy. First, everything in Florida has to be cleaned up, emptied out, put away and closed up. Then, you arrive in Michigan and everything has to be put away, dusted off, filled up and opened up. Usually everything in the transition goes smoothly. It is a lot of work but it goes smoothly. This year that was not the case. It seems like anything mechanical that gets touched gets broken.

One of the biggest projects right away is yard work. Florida is so nice in the winter with minimal yard work. We make up for it when we get to Michigan. Our son, Daniel, picked us up at the airport and after buying groceries and having lunch we headed home. The car had barely stopped before Dave was headed to the pole barn to get the mowers ready. We live on four acres and Dave mows two of them. We have a zero turn mower, a huge walk behind to do the hills and a push mower for the in between areas. We also have a 20 year old riding mower that we take up north which was in the pole barn for the winter. My husband takes very good care of the mowers and winterizes them faithfully every fall. That didn’t seem to matter this year. Three of the four mowers are temperamental. The zero turn started right away. The walk behind started but quit. This was the first broken thing. The push mower worked too so the guys were able to get the lawn mowed. Dave did try to start the rider to take up north and that did not work. That is the second broken thing. Both mowers had to be loaded into the trailer and hauled to the mechanic.

The next day Daniel is doing the trimming out in the yard and the trimmer quits. This is the third thing broken. We had to take the trimmer to a different fix it place in the opposite direction as the mowers.

In the meantime in the house I can’t get the computer to connect to the wireless. That is so frustrating because I am used to checking my mail and looking things up. Fortunately Daniel is a computer expert and after spending a half hour checking out my computer got it connected.

The faucet in the bathtub was not working right when we left for Florida. Now, it isn’t working at all. I had to call the company and send for parts which took a week. To bathe I had to go to the basement and climb on a ladder to turn on a faucet so I could go back up stairs and use the bathtub every morning. Things are getting frustrating. I think we are up to five things broken.

Another thing we just couldn’t get connected right was the Directv to the TV. We always change the connection to Florida and then back to Michigan. Usually there is no problem but this year you already know how things are going. After a couple calls we finally got the TV working.

I am getting so I don’t want to touch anything mechanical. Do I dare wash any clothes? Is the dish washer next in line? What about the car?

Our driveway was flooded out twice two years ago. With everything that has broken since we have been home I got really nervous today when the two inches of rain fell but, we still have our driveway. Maybe the end of everything broken is now here. I can only pray.