January 14, 2017 - Awkward Family Reunion

          After a sudden job change, we ended up in Plymouth, Minnesota.   My oldest brother, Alfred lived about 30 miles away in Apple Valley, Minnesota and the first order of business was to reach out and invite my brother and his wife, Carol, to dinner once we unpacked and got settled in.

          The last time I had seen my brother I was 16 years old – and now I was married and 28 years old.  This was an outreach on my part to become “family” again as we would be living close by.

          It was a Saturday night and they arrived promptly on time.  It was an awkward moment for me as I introduced my husband to my brother and his wife, for the very first time.  We had been married about five years before and they had not attended our wedding due to the distance.

It was as if we had invited total strangers to dinner and it took them about three seconds to survey the nothing of an apartment and decide to sit down at the table in the dining room, as we had a galley kitchen.

          Making a cocktail for Carol required an ice crusher and mine was still in storage.  I had to improvise by smacking a plastic bag of ice cubes with a pipe wrench which my brother, Al found amusing and ridiculed me sharply when the plastic bag split open and crushed ice spilled out on to the ugly orange and green kitchen floor. It was an embarrassing moment for me which I haven’t forgotten.

          We sipped our cocktails and were well into the first course when I noticed my brother had picked all his raisins out of the Waldorf salad and lined them up, one after the other, on the outer edge of his salad plate.  My sister-in-law teased him like a little child saying, “Making a raisin train? – He doesn’t like raisins.”  I didn’t know that and made a mental note to remember it.

It was a stressful dinner; I realized none of us were really “connecting” like I thought we would. 

          Later, trying to find common ground, I asked, “What are you buying Mom for her birthday?”

          Carol said, “Have you got any ideas?  I am fresh out.  Did she like what I got her for Christmas?”

          I said, “She didn’t say, but they were snowed in with an old fashioned white Christmas, like we used to have when we were kids.”

          Alfred said, “We didn’t have real snow when we were kids, wait until you see how it snows here in Minnesota.”

          I replied, “I remember the snow ball fights as I was your favorite target most of the time.”  That made Al smile a bit, but not as much as when I put the dessert in front of him.

          “Strawberry shortcake, my favorite!”  He said, adding, “You remembered.”

I smiled softly thinking,  ‘Finally, a glimmer of hope in my family reunion attempt.’