When The Relatives Came to Town

The title of this post is a title of a Cynthia Rylant children’s book.

She’s a great children’s author.

Do you know her?

She writes a series about Mr. Putter and Tabby.  And she wrote a beautiful book called When I Was Young and in the Mountains, which is just my favorite.  (Because I love mountains.  And I love prose that reads like poetry.)

Oh, and Kevin met Ms. Rylant when she attended a program at his school when he was in the fourth grade so our family’s copy of the book is signed.

And all of her lovely literary merits have very little to do with this post.

Except our relatives just came to town.

(And there you have the thread – however thin it may be.)

Our relatives – as in my Uncle Ray and Aunt Brenda.

Yes, there is a rooster on Mosely’s shoulder. (A topic for another post, I promise.)

It’s funny, because I’ve always referred to my Aunt Brenda as “Annie Brenda”.

It’s the name I thought my older brothers were saying.  And no one ever corrected me.

Annie Brenda was the only person I ever knew (in my entire life) that my older brother Dean allowed to refer to himself as “Deanie”.

Maybe that’s why he called her “Annie”.

As in, when I was in high school or college, I asked my mother – “Why don’t we ever call Annie Brenda ‘aunt’ like our other aunts?”

I figured her name should be Aunt Annie Brenda.

That wasn’t her name though.

It’s just Brenda (but I still lovingly call her Annie Brenda and I always will).  And she and Uncle Ray stopped by our home last week for a surprise visit.

I think the last time we all hung out together London and Mosely were toddlers.

Back in the day, we celebrated Thanksgiving all together on the farm in Virginia.

I thought of my cousins, the Namies, as my favorite Thanksgiving relatives.  They always came loaded down with homemade pumpkin pies (and my mother only ever purchased Mrs. Smith’s creations), homemade yeast rolls and all manner of delicious desserts and tasty treats.

I played the exact same on-going Monopoly game with my cousins Tim and Crystal for the entire length of their holiday visit.  We made up extravagant and ridiculous rules and named as our children the characters drawn on the opportunity cards.

It was wonderful.

And we were so thrilled to welcome them into our home now and to play catch up and scroll through scads of photos of their seven beautiful children and their families.  (Except throughout the photo montage mentally scarring images of Uncle Ray’s recently operated-upon stomach would surface and I would have to look away before becoming violently ill.)

Having Uncle Ray and Annie Brenda sit on our sofa and eat breakfast on our porch and talk talk talk about the things we’ve missed talk talk talking about these past years was a slice of something sweet.  A delicacy poured out to be savored and taken in slowly.

It was beautiful.

To be encouraged by these real grown-ups I have long admired and loved, to be assured that Kevin and I were “doing a good job” and to see them praise the progress of our children was more meaningful than I can express.

Holding Uncle Ray’s hand at the threshold of our school room here and having him speak of the importance and value and sacredness of all that went on inside this humble, dirty-floored space was nearly magical.

Riding in the car with Annie Brenda and being able to really connect as the years and experiences of our lives have actually treaded similar waters was a bit surreal – and so perfectly timed to the needs of our household and the current cries of my heart.

I’m so glad the relatives came to town.