Sometimes reconciliation looks like sitting together around collapsible plastic tables in the fellowship hall of a funeral parlor.
After the hymns are sung and stories about my grandmother’s impossibly light yeast rolls are shared at the microphone, after the graveside service beneath a parched summer sky that seems determined to melt us all, we return for luncheon.
There, I talk to my cousins for the first time since 1997 at the last funeral I attended when my grandfather died. Now it is my grandmother who has died and nineteen years have passed.
***
Families are complicated, aren’t they? Maybe yours is too? Sometimes it is easiest to shed the influence of our family of origin altogether. Sometimes, there are negative influences we should shed. Perhaps abuse issues we have to stand up against? Perhaps there are controlling people we must confront? Perhaps we need time away to heal?
In my family abuse, dysfunction, hurt and bitterness run wild, like an overgrown weed. I come from generations of alcohol abuse, backstabbers, and broken promises. There is no need to recount the specifics, but needless to say, much has been damaged. Much has been lost.
It is an ancient cycle as old as Cain’s envy of Abel. As old as the rivalry between Jacob and Esau. As old as the jealousy of Jacob’s sons over his love for Joseph. It is a tired story. You would think we’d learn . . .
***
People grew up in hard times back then and sometimes hard times makes for hard people. But despite that, there was sweet alongside the bitter.
As I sit on the foldable metal chair in the fellowship hall, I remember summer weeks spent at my grandparents’ house when I stayed up too late watching Nick at Nite. I remember the taste of my grandmother’s cool and creamy banana pudding, luscious to the last lick. I remember the cookie jar was always being full. There were countless sweaty summers “doing corn” and “doing beans” which meant a week of shucking, snapping, blanching, and freezing. The taste of strawberry freezer jam smeared over toast. Just one taste of jam pulled from the freezer—still icy and I think of her. Food was the way my grandmother showed us her love. And I was loved with plates heaped with mashed potatoes and gravy.
***
And so we celebrate my grandmother’s life over plates of food styrofoam cups of coffee and plastic utensils, and that seems appropriate. I see my cousins’ children for the first time and meet their spouses. The quarrel was never between us and none of us want to keep it going. We seek to drop the burden of carrying it.
Perhaps it’s never too late to bind up old wounds. To start the work of healing them. To not let past generations of bitterness become our own. There will still be scars, but maybe that’s okay too.
My cousins send “friend” requests to me through Facebook.
It’s a small start in the right direction.
And I’ll make strawberry jam.
Martha Stewart’s Strawberry Cake
First published on October 28, 2016 for Grace Table
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