Monday, September 6, 2010

Diaspora


We came from all points on the compass: North, West, South, and even East (by less than 25 miles, but it still counts). Our hair was a little more grey or a little more absent; we had a few hitches in our getalongs. Most of our children came as well, some with their own children. A few couldn't make it: we missed them. We came together to celebrate our parents and each other and all that came to be because 60 years ago, our parents embarked on the great adventure of "I Do". And it occurred to me that no one truly knows what they agree to when they say those two little words.

My parents had already decided on four children, and Dad even predicted our birth order correctly. But that's about all. They didn't know, standing there in that church, that Dad would someday impress our tribal hosts by improvising a fishing "net" out of his t-shirt (long story). Or that Mom would learn to make mashed plantains as good as any made by the local Tsáchila women. They could not have foreseen our menagerie of pets that included a monkey, a parrot, a sloth and a kinkajou. (Actually, the sloth was terribly boring; I'm not sure he counts as a pet.)

I'm positive they had no clue how many ways a boy could need stitches: in one summer, Paul fell out of a tree against a barbed-wire fence, split his finger with a rusty wheelbarrow handle and caught a fishhook in his thumb. They didn't know that Steve would elevate practical jokes to a fine art (ask him sometime about a certain statue.) Or that Becky – the quietest of us all – would venture furthest from home, moving to Australia for several years.

I know for a fact that they never imagined their youngest would want a pet tarantula. But they let me keep him anyway.

In fact, they said "I do" to a lot of things, including our childhood. We dug caves in the hillside, swam in jungle rivers, made little "huts" in the tall weeds that grew in the pasture next to us. When I wanted to be a ballerina, Daddy built a practice barre in my room – even though we were miles from any school and I had absolutely no talent. When Paul burst into the house ecstatic over his "friends", Mom went out and knelt in the dirt beside him for an introduction to his new-found buddies, the leaf-cutter ants.

They said "I do" to things they didn't want to, like sending their children away to school. By the time I was six, correspondence school was available and I stayed home to study. After sixth grade, Mom and Dad gave in to my pleas to send me to boarding school with my siblings; I didn't realize the pain they felt because I was the last one, and they deeply missed my brothers and sister, and if I left also, the house would be too empty too soon.

But this weekend, we all came back to fill their house again. We swapped stories, and it was good to see that nothing essential has changed over the years. We still find the same word plays funny. We can finish most of each other's memories. When I was little, I loved C.S. Lewis' Narnia series (still do.) I used to compare us to the Pevensie children, except that my siblings were Steve the Wise, Becky the Calm, and Paul the Intrepid. They still are, but they have more layers and dimensions than I could have known back then. (Considering how often I tattled on them, it seems the better part of wisdom not to ask what name they would have given me.)

Every so often, we even told a story that our children hadn't already heard.

The grandchildren added their own stories. As I sat and listened to my nephews and nieces, it occurred to me that when my parents slid those rings onto each other's finger, they also said "I do" to the physical therapist, the nurse, the engineer, theater director, wildlife conservationist, anthropologist, musicians, and who knows what else over the years.

And later, as I watched their children play - the fourth generation - I found myself wondering where their paths would lead. What will they reflect upon when their own family diaspora gathers someday, when they're a little grey, a little worn?

I don't know. All I know is that wonderful things happen when someone has the guts to take Mystery in hand and say, "I do!"