When Even The Big Kids Were Little

Reunions were few and far between in my father's family. Too many bad things had happened in the past, things that weren't talked about; the family had fallen apart in the thirties and forties. But one Christmas we managed to get almost all the brothers and sisters, with their children, together. It was a bit overwhelming for this three-year old (seen hiding in the back row) to be with all those kids at once. Even the big kids, the first wave, were little then. I was part of the second wave, and in a few years there would be a third, along with a couple of "surprises" a few years after that. But my father's family was never all together like this again.

My father's mother died young, my father's father never recovered. There were other things as well, things never spoken of, but the paucity of these occasions speaks
volumes.