Family Function

Sitting around my brother's condo this weekend,
the living room a fusillade of brightly hued children's toys
and Chinese food.
My nearly 3-year old niece just escorted upstairs for both
bath & bed.
The Cormey men left behind on their sofas,
with forks and leftover birthday cake.
My dad, my brother & me...
chat up this relative & that.
All of it distant hearsay,
all of it dated or woebegotten, hand-me-down information.
Uncle Bob in Harverhill nursing home,
had a relapse but recovered.
Cousin Debbie married 3 times, the 2nd husband odd &
full of Uncle Bob nervous tics.
Cousin Debbie kind of giving my brother the brush-off when
he went to visit her in Amesbury many years ago,
to retrieve his wedding gift.
Aunt Pat--
well that's a whole other log.
But my dad's always good for an hours' worth of Aunt Pat complaints.
Aunt Rita & her "needling me" story.
And Uncle Jack
(my mother's brother Uncle Jack,
not the other literal "Brother" aka "Monsiguer"
who wrote my dad that I'd grow up to be alone & friendless)
well he wasn't kidding when he told us youngsters MANY years ago,
at one of Grandma R's Christmas parties:
"You won't be seeing much of me".
No one has.
He could still be selling washing machines in some Avalon-like Lechmere
somewhere...
And no one can reach Aunt Joannie...
you either get voicemail or Danny or Mikey,
running interception.

It's all so depressing,
no extended family to speak of.
My mother's side curt & cut-off
(even w/ Aunt Pat living next door!)
& my dad's side...
well the Cormey's were never tree-huggers
or human-huggers.
It was ediquette & poise & WASP'y Longmeadow-like demeanor.
My brother's side of the aisle at his wedding,
was embarrassingly bare.

I'm OK w/ it, I suppose.
Tim & I were always the youngest amidst the cousins & kin,
a whole generation loomed over us @ the get-togethers.
I'd be on the floor in Grandma R's dining room,
playing w/ my Leggo's
while Uncle Ronnie & Cousin Sherrie's husband, Tom,
and the men's men...
hung back in the narrow wedge-like kitchen
& drank their canned beers.
Or if we made one of those rare visits to The Wilsons estate,
it was rarified air & Uncle Bob trailing my brother & I around
the house,
making sure we didn't pick anything up
or put our Ginger Ale down of the linoleum...
or something petty like that.

So I've grown up for the most part,
family-less.
I've had to embrace the solitude
because there's never been back-up.
All that died in the late 80's.
My brother is steadily building his support network
of wife, children, home.
Me?
I have comic books & big dreams,
getting the hell out of Dodge & this pedestrian life.
I have no one who depends on me,
& that's fine.
Because the experience is mutual.