A chain of hands

My Aunt Winnie once commented that if there were a fire or flood or political crisis, her sister Grace would grab her husband Ken and call to her offspring, "Come along, children!" but if my mother Gloria were in the same situation, she would grab my brother and me and call to her husband, "Come along, Las!" (short for Lascelles). I was in college when apropos of nothing Winnie made this observation as we sat on her terrace one summer afternoon, and for some reason it stuck with me, made me wonder what kind of wife and mother would I be? Would I grab my children and call my husband or grab my husband and call my kids? Grace and Ken had a great love story, so perhaps Winnie was making a statement about their epic involvement with one another. But I always thought my own parents had a great love story, too, though theirs was more rooted in practicalities, at least as far as I could see, so I couldn't quite get a fix on the point Aunt Winnie was making. I don't even know that she was accurate in her opinion of her sisters' relational priorities, but I do think she was making a comment, indeed a judgment, about said priorities. I have no idea why I woke up remembering this today, marveling that Winnie's tossed off reflection back when I was twenty had stayed so present in memory. I pondered it anew and realized that if faced with a need to escape, my husband and I would each grab a child with one hand and then grab each other, and maybe you can do that when it's two of you and you have only two children, whereas Grace and Ken had three. Still, what's to stop any family making a chain of clasped hands in the name of love and survival, and that is my rumination for today. I have no idea what it means, except maybe I am missing my mom and her sisters, and knowing them, they might all be together in the spirit world right now, happily debating this very question.

In other news, our daughter's love came down from Boston for an event in the city this weekend, and he bunked with us. Our girl stayed up north with their pup, happy not to be traveling anywhere or having to find a boarder for Munch. On Friday evening, her young man asked my husband and me a question that made us all very happy. The moment was heartfelt and beautiful and blessings and bear hugs were freely given. I won't go into it any more than that because people deserve to reveal themselves to the world in their own time. Even though I'm being a little bit cryptic here, I'm sure you can probably guess what comes next. Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe that's why Gloria, Grace, and Winnie were visiting during that interval between sleep and waking this morning. Maybe they were a family welcome committee. Makes me smile to think it.