Pam Keaton - Portraits and Illustrations

Misty and I had planned to drop Mom off at my ex-uncle's family reunion and carry in the lunchmeat and vegetable tray we had brought, but we had no intention of staying ourselves. Inside the church basement, we fully expected to find dozens of people who were baffled as to why three strangers from Ohio were intruding on their family time. Mom could stay there all day if she wanted to, but Misty and I would find something else to do.

From the time we stepped through the door and my mother was recognized as "Aint Jane," we were all showered with smiles, introductions, and hugs. For the next half-hour while several ladies busily uncovered dishes and prepared for the meal, I uncovered my southern roots. I don't know why, but it had completely escaped me that even though my aunt had passed away, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were still my family. And there they were--smiling faces floating around us--as happy to see us as if they had spent years waiting for us to come back down the road. I saw my beloved grandmother many times in the faces of the confident southern women who emerged to welcome me. If there had been any notions left that I was thought of as an outsider, they faded completely when yet another set of my grandmother's eyes looked into mine and a steady southern female voice declared, "Well, Honey, ah don't know who ya are, but ah know yer in the raaht place."

Having been to countless church dinners in Ohio, the concept of a large variety of hot food on one table is not unfamiliar to me. But I believe it is safe to say that this array of country cooked food which included fried chicken, stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, various vegetable dishes, and a wide assortment of casseroles and desserts was the largest and most satisfying feast I had ever had the pleasure of partaking in. It should not surprise you that I hid the cold lunchmeat and raw vegetable tray in a nearby refrigerator, 'cause that was just embarrassing.

When I got my plate, I looked around to check on mom and Misty, neither of whom I had seen since we got there. Mom was seated at a table surrounded by women older than me who knew her only from photographs and from a few short visits to Ohio, but who kept addressing her as "Aint Jane" as naturally as Misty and her brother talking to me. Mom was telling them about her "girls" and their families, about her life at the "Commons" (which are government-subsidized apartments newly built in our hometown), and about her mental health support group meetings. Her audience took it in without skipping a beat and traded her with updates about their own lives. Contrary to the chilly reception I had expected my mother to get here, she was completely accepted simply for being "Aint Jane" and was having the time of her life. At that moment, I felt a complete love for my mother just as she was. No matter how unskilled my sisters and I had always found her to be at teaching, listening, or other things commonly regarded as real "parenting," she had never been short on hugs and kisses; and she would no doubt have tackled a bear if one had ever tried to hurt us. We had all fumbled our way through our lives together, but we had all turned out all right.

***

Mom did not leave the reunion with her former brother-in-law as a boyfriend, but I suspect that she hadn't had any serious expectations along those lines. She had likely been more like a young girl attending a school dance to see who might be there and what might happen. Misty left with two twelve-year-old girls hugging her neck and hanging on her as she promised them she would be back next year whether her grandma and Aunt Lizzy came or not.

I left with telephone numbers and an assignment to create the family tree because, as my mother loundly announced when they were looking for volunteers, "Liz is real good on the computer!" I had tried to decline, saying that I thought it should be someone who was more familiar with all of their names. I had wanted to flatly refuse because I didn't want the responsibility, but they insisted they would help me with the particulars. I did have an entire year for the appropriate inspiration to strike, so I gave in.

As I drove north through the town that final time, I pictured my family tree as a blossoming magnolia deeply rooted in the rust-colored southern soil--some of its flowers missing due to their earlier migration to parts unknown. As I remembered the smiling faces we had just left, a vision of my grandmother came to mind. She was sitting in her front porch lounge chair smiling with her arm raised high over her head and her hand flapping an exaggerated good-by. "I'll see ya agin, but I caint say when!" she used to call.

My grandmother, who I had so adored for her warm hugs, hearty belly laughs, and blackberry dumplings, had been a granddaughter, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and long-time friend to people in this town long before I came to know her in Ohio.

As I watched the familiar names on mailboxes sail past one last time, I had an incredible feeling of belonging. I had no intention of packing up and moving down here, but I had the comforting feeling of knowing that if I did, somewhere farther back on the magnolia tree, a blossom would form so similar in size, color, and fragrance that no one would know or even care that it hadn't been there all along.