Family Secrets

Well not secrets exactly, but information that I hadn't known before.

I learned yesterday that my grandfather's youngest brother died when he fell off a pool table and hit his head. He was dancing on it. He was the wild brother an he was in his sixties when it happened. I hope I'm still able to dance on a pool table when I'm in my sixties. I also hope I learn from his mistakes.

Its amazing the stories that come out when a family gets together. Not just the immediate family, but the extended family. I didn't even know my mom had six cousins from that one uncle. Of course I knew my uncle an the aunt that sadly just passed away, but not that they had six children. They were married for 64 years. It was incredibly sad. Just looking at my uncle made me sad, to lose your companion of that long. How does one manage?

He also looks slightly like my grandfather who passed away when I was eight. My uncle remembered how my grandfather would give me a ride to school every morning, squeezing my knee the whole way to make me squeal with delight. Papa was bringing me to school and we would listen to the fishing report from the local AM radio station. I always remember those mornings and sometimes we would pass my uncle, his oldest brother, and we would wave out the windows.

Katrinka he would call me, the Polish equivalent of my name and I would squeal again in protest of that name, but smile all the same. It was special. Some of my earliest memories were of running my finger over the smooth skin that covered the space where his pinky finger used to be. He had lost it in an accident working at the ship yard before I was born. He used to tell me I had bitten it off when I was a baby. For awhile I had believed him.

At the wake there was a wedding portrait of my uncle and his late wife. The best man was a young handsome man of twenty-four. I turned to my younger brother. "That's who's responsible for our eye brows." and we both laughed.

Next to that was the large family picture taken at a family reunion. The 50's crew cuts and cocky smiles on the brother's faces stand out along with my own likeness in the form of the tooth-less grin of my mother. Even at such a sad time it was hear warming to know you had those roots and those strong blood ties running through your veins. It was and emotionally draining day, but uplifting just the same, to be reminded of where you come from.