That’s me in the plaid blazer. Even back then, I wore my Scottish genes on both sleeves.
My three siblings were much older; ten years separated me from my brother, my closest sib. The girls were older still. Despite the age gap, I was never referred to as an “afterthought” or the “mistake;” I was always the “surprise.” Still, growing up, I felt my sisters and brother to be more aunts and uncle than siblings. (I was an uncle myself by the age of six.) We all got along well but our experiences of family life were completely different. They had each other while I had the dog and older parents in a quiet house. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not complaining. I was loved, got plenty of attention, and had opportunities galore. But family—at least the kind that included lots of sibling interaction—was only intermittently present.
Boy, how that has changed! My wife is one of nine children in a rollicking crew that now has multiplied to somewhere in the mid-forties when we include children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren. There are a couple of outliers, but most live within a long stone’s throw of each other. There is always something going on: a birthday, an unexpected visit, a wedding, an emergency. In other words, life. Never a dull or even quiet moment. If I wanted a big, close family, I got it in spades. Be careful what you wish for!
Kermit the Frog knew it wasn’t easy being green. Likewise, it isn’t easy for an introvert to be thrown into a lion’s den of extroverts, but I will say it does make for an interesting existence. It stretches me more than yoga, but that’s a good thing. The only child within me knows quiet and stillness all too well so although the hustle and bustle of big family life isn’t exactly natural to me, it is endlessly fascinating, like a never-ending story or a soap opera with more plot twists and characters than I could ever have imagined. Think you know what will happen next? Stay tuned; you’re in for another surprise!
Most of the time, I dive into whatever is going on, but I’m learning it’s ok to retreat, too. Like the time when I looked around and realized I was the only male in the room, one rooster among at least a dozen family hens. Slightly dazed, I went in search of the other guys: they were all in the kitchen picking at leftovers and drinking beer. “What took you so long?” one of the nephews said.
The hardest part of big family life is making plans. Or sticking to them. The State Department has initials for this—OBE: Overtaken by events. You think you know what’s going on, then something zigs, so you zag. This frustrated me at first—and at second and third, too—but eventually, I caught on. Now, when a bunch of us go out to dinner, I glance at the menu, order what strikes my fancy, then sit back to watch the show.
“What are you having?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Maybe I’ll have the crab cake.”
“Want to share?”
“Ask the waiter if the flounder is good.”
“Wait; think I’ll have lamb instead, but only if I can have spinach instead of rice and dressing on the side.”
“How about an order of fries for the table?”
And on it goes… At least there’s wine; that part is always easy.
Families shape us. For better or worse, we are the products of our genetic and human environments—we are nurtured and natured—probably more than we’d like to admit. As for me, sometimes I think about sitting on the stairs in our old house, way past my bedtime, my arm around my dog, listening to the rest of the family below. It’s a good memory, albeit one tinted with yearning. But no yearning now. I’m in it up to both plaid elbows.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. “A Place to Stand,” a book of his photographs, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015. He is currently working on a collection of stories called “Musing Right Along.”
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