SFamily Ties

Great night with my cousin John, finally meeting his three little ones. Sadly, we only remembered to take a photo in the parking lot where I'm staying after a gorgeous dinner in Sausalito, where the view was so spectacular you wouldn't have believed it anyway! Johnny is actually my cousin Eileen's son, but is only a handful of years younger than me because my dad is the tied-for-second-to-youngest of 10 from an Irish-Catholic family. In fact, when his then-unwed mom got pregnant in Pottsville, Pa., and her dad (my dad's older brother Gene) freaked out, Eileen and her boyfiend turned to my mom and dad, her Uncle Bill, for help, and they wound up coming to stay with my family when I about 5 in Madison Heights, Mich., until things cooled down back home. (Years later, John chose the University of Michigan for undergrad and it was only then that Eileen revealed what had happened in the run-up to his arrival, saying: "You know you 'lived' there before?"!) Touchingly, when my father suffered a traumatic brain injury after my parents' divorce and was moved back to Pottsville, it was Eileen who was there keeping a close eye on him at the VA hospital and later Resthaven nursing home, returning the favor in his time of need. I didn't reconnect with Eileen and her brood until I was a young man. But I am eternally grateful they have always been in my life, even when I was too young to understand it, much less appreciate it. xo