I am basically part of that "Wonder Years" generation, and I while I haven't checked the exact dates I suspect that my cousin, Randy Miller, was more in synch with that than I. I mention this because if you are even close to that age then you can "remember" things through those old flickering reel-to-reel videos that my own kids don't know.
I can remember sitting in my aunt and uncle's living room after Thanksgiving Day dinner, or over the Fourth of July, and setting it all up. Not popping a disc in, but literally setting it all up: white screen and all. And watching things that at the time felt like only yesterday: raking leaves at Grandma Miller's house or playing touch football in Seelyville.
I wrote a few days ago about Randy's death, my oldest cousin. Today I sat in the pews of the same church I grew up in, not as a priest, but as a cousin in mourning, behind cousins and their kids who strangely look exactly as I remember their parents looking. (Their parents, on the other hand, just look old. I'm so glad that hasn't happened to me!) The whole thing felt at times like a flickering "reel-to-reel" and at some point I remembered us all being there years before, at least the family, to bury my grandmother.
But she lived a full life. Randy's life was cut short, way too soon. I remember being at his wedding, at least I am pretty sure it was his wedding. (Memories are funny and they do blur together.) He was five years older than I; and he and Ann married right out of high school. So I must have been 15 or 16, sitting with my parents and my grandmother and Aunt Vera. I think it was there that Aunt Vera began telling stories about Prohibition and how she and my grandmother used to sneak out to speak-easies for a drink. My grandmother totally denied it. And Aunt Vera said (this I can remember in flickering reel-to-reel for sure) said, "Peg, you remember..." And I caught my grandmother in peripheral sight shaking her head no. But of course I was old enough to grasp the truth. My grandmother had once been young and that was a very cool realization.
Randy and Ann were an amazing couple, who against all odds raised these three beautiful daughters. Ann still looks the same as I remember her; a strong, beautiful woman. Her girls look nothing like I remember them because in my mind's eye they are little children and now they are grown women with children of their own, and features and gifts from both parents.
It is a strange thing to be re-connected to family and be present to the moment even as such memories wash over you. But it's a good thing. Randy is gone at far too young an age. That is tragic and sad. But he lived life fully and touched lives in ways I don't think he ever realized, partly because of his authentic humility. He was a family man--as my step-father said today in his sermon--truly a "good man." That ripples out in ways that most public figures would yearn for, ways obvious to me today as we sat and cried, and celebrated.
I can remember sitting in my aunt and uncle's living room after Thanksgiving Day dinner, or over the Fourth of July, and setting it all up. Not popping a disc in, but literally setting it all up: white screen and all. And watching things that at the time felt like only yesterday: raking leaves at Grandma Miller's house or playing touch football in Seelyville.
I wrote a few days ago about Randy's death, my oldest cousin. Today I sat in the pews of the same church I grew up in, not as a priest, but as a cousin in mourning, behind cousins and their kids who strangely look exactly as I remember their parents looking. (Their parents, on the other hand, just look old. I'm so glad that hasn't happened to me!) The whole thing felt at times like a flickering "reel-to-reel" and at some point I remembered us all being there years before, at least the family, to bury my grandmother.
But she lived a full life. Randy's life was cut short, way too soon. I remember being at his wedding, at least I am pretty sure it was his wedding. (Memories are funny and they do blur together.) He was five years older than I; and he and Ann married right out of high school. So I must have been 15 or 16, sitting with my parents and my grandmother and Aunt Vera. I think it was there that Aunt Vera began telling stories about Prohibition and how she and my grandmother used to sneak out to speak-easies for a drink. My grandmother totally denied it. And Aunt Vera said (this I can remember in flickering reel-to-reel for sure) said, "Peg, you remember..." And I caught my grandmother in peripheral sight shaking her head no. But of course I was old enough to grasp the truth. My grandmother had once been young and that was a very cool realization.
Randy and Ann were an amazing couple, who against all odds raised these three beautiful daughters. Ann still looks the same as I remember her; a strong, beautiful woman. Her girls look nothing like I remember them because in my mind's eye they are little children and now they are grown women with children of their own, and features and gifts from both parents.
It is a strange thing to be re-connected to family and be present to the moment even as such memories wash over you. But it's a good thing. Randy is gone at far too young an age. That is tragic and sad. But he lived life fully and touched lives in ways I don't think he ever realized, partly because of his authentic humility. He was a family man--as my step-father said today in his sermon--truly a "good man." That ripples out in ways that most public figures would yearn for, ways obvious to me today as we sat and cried, and celebrated.
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