I really didn't mean to be grumpy, but I was. It was the 4th of July, Dad's birthday, and all my brothers and sisters and me and my family were in Snowflake, seeing mom and dad's new house and having a family reunion.
I tried to be happy for mom as we toured her new house, but I wasn't. In fact, I was green with envy. Whereas the double house dad had built for us down in Gilbert had been very simple, this new house was almost extravagant, at least by my standards. Dad had built the old house himself, cutting corners and using the cheapest materials he could. The new house in Snowflake had been built for them, and their builder had not skimped on anything. The bathroom fixtures, lights, kitchen counters and appliances were all upgrades. The rooms were huge! The front room had a cathedral ceilings and a full fireplace with a two-story rock chimney. Mom and dad's bedroom was enormous, and had it's own corner fireplace, and their bathroom was bigger than my whole bedroom at home.
I had to swallow my pride, and my envy, so I could tell mom how lovely her knew house was and assure her I thought it was wonderful. I really did want her to be happy, she looked so tired and worn out, and I knew she hadn't really wanted to leave her old home, so I tried to sound enthusiastic as she showed me around, but inside I was grumpy.
I felt the same way about the family reunion. No one had asked me for my input, they had planned it without me, and I was put out. Truthfully, I knew I was being spoiled and I should grow up, but I was used to being the oldest sister and telling everyone else what to do, so I was just plain in a bad mood.
The first day of the reunion we played “fear factor”, where each family competed against the others by doing stupid tasks, like seeing who could eat sour candy fastest, or five pieces of hard licorice first, or put together a puzzle or catch the most fish in Linda's pond. There was only Kami and Krissi and I to stand against all the other big families, since my grown children weren't there. We didn't stand a chance, and that made me cranky.
We had a Bar-b-Que on the 4th of July, and celebrated dad's birthday. Everyone was worn out by evening, and no one but us cared about going to watch fireworks that night. I tried to talk my little sisters into letting their kids come with me, but they wanted them to stay with them, so just Kami and Krissi and I drove into Show Low for the program, and that also made me cross.
I was pretty much reveling in my bad mood by the last night of our reunion, almost enjoying finding fault with everything we did, until after dinner when we all gathered in mom and dad's huge living room to play “Liars Club”. We were all sitting around their fireplace, on three couches, lots of chairs, pillows, and the area rug in the center of the room, when my sister, Linda, got up to explain the rules of this new game.
“OK, everybody,” she began. “What we do is pick pick three people to come up in front of everybody. Two of them have to make up a lie about themselves, and one has to tell something true that none of the rest of us knows. Then we all guess who is telling the truth.”
That sounded kind of fun, so I perked up a little.
Mom and Phillip and Heather were chosen to tell about themselves during one round. I can't remember the other stories, but mom said, “I've never told you this before, but when my big sister, your Aunt Amy, got married, me and my best girl friend stole a whole layer from her wedding cake and took it behind the house where her reception was and ate it until we both got sick.”
We all laughed, but no one could imagine mother being such a stinker, especially since she would have been at least sixteen at the time. Surely she wouldn't pull a prank like that at her own sister's wedding. We all guessed that mom's story was one of the lies, but we were wrong. Apparently, she really did steal Aunt Amy's wedding cake and eat it with her girl-friend.
When it was my brother-in-law's turn, he looked around at all of us, cleared his throat, and began: “You know how every Friday they made you take a spelling test when you were in elementary school? Well, in fifth grade my teacher made us pass our paper to the person behind us for them to grade it. I sat behind a really smart-Alec girl who always got 100% on her test, and it used to make me cross. So, one Friday when I graded her test, I erased all her corect words and wrote them in again, spelled wrong, and gave her an F on her test.”
We laughed again at this story, but I wasn't sure it was actually a lie. My brother-in-law might be a straight-laced, honorable fellow now that he was all grown up, but I could imagine what a cut-up he might have been in fifth grade. That time I guessed right: he was telling the truth.
That turned out to be a really fun night, and suddenly it felt like I was home, even if I was in a new house, in a new city, hundreds of miles away from where I'd grown up and spent countless evenings with my family, just like this, laughing, joking, swapping stories, and just loving each other. My attitude changed that night, and I realized it was going to be OK for mom and dad to live in Snowflake, after all. We were still the same family, no matter how close we lived to each other, and we still loved and enjoyed each others company. That was the most comfortable, happy evening I'd had in a long time, and it sure felt good to be back to normal, even if I did have to go home to Gilbert the next day and leave mother and dad up in Snowflake in their new house.
From that moment on I stopped resenting the changes and the lost past, and started looking forward to the future and moving to Snowflake myself some day. Most of all, I knew wherever I lived, my family would always be there for me, and they would love me, no matter what.
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