Family Values
by Gisele Turchon
“No matter where a person is in the world, she will find a way to connect nearby family.”
My Nana has a true sense of family. Maybe it's because she lived in close quarters with her cousins, aunts and uncles in tenement housing. There was basically a revolving door in her apartment. Different relatives came in and out when they wanted and some even lived with her family. Her mother had an open-door policy, and took care of relatives and even took in strangers.
My mom described the same type of upbringing with friends and family inhabiting their crammed house. My Nana loved every minute of it. She still finds so much joy in learning about people, which shouldn't be a surprise because she is a reporter, but more than that, she loves caring for and supporting people. Nana takes pride in getting family together. No matter where a person is in the world, she will find a way to connect nearby family. She could hear that a member of our family is near my family and would connect them and would love to have us meet, even if we have never even met before.
She always wants family to get together and she always wants to see everyone, because we don't see each other often enough. Personally, I've always appreciated seeing my family, especially when I'm isolated from them geographically.
My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all live in New England and New York. They're lucky enough to gather for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Passover, but I'm rarely able to join. FaceTime is helpful, although two-dimensional. And it's definitely not the same as sharing experiences and holidays in person with my family. I'm pretty sure they all take it for granted that they can be together, but I value that time together. Like my Nana, it's so special to me to learn more about my family and share funny pictures, experiences, music, dance and food together. We usually learn that we have more in common than we thought, whether it's listening to the Beatles, having a passion for live performance, or even choreographing dance together.
So, when my Nana learned that my New York cousin, Steve, would be in the Bay Area on a business trip, she worked her magic to connect us. I took it a step further. I FaceTimed my cousin Cassie, Steve's daughter, who's two years older than me to join him. We looked into flights for Cassie and texted our parents the options. We were effective and two summers ago, Cassie visited. We had so much fun thrifting in the Haight, exploring Monterey, recreating Full House intro at Alamo Square, and watching the sunset at the Marin Headlands, that we've decided we need to spend more time together. That spurred the idea of a family reunion. Day by day, we strategized a way to get all Massachusetts, California, and New York family together. We knew some families would balk at this due to expense, needing time off, or scheduling in general, so, that acted as fuel for our fire.
We had several versions of the same plan and based on our audiences. We planned certain events to appeal to the kids, and others to reel in adults. We messaged the kids with our ideas: a karaoke lip sync battle, parents versus kids, pranks, gift exchange, movie night and family hoping to get them excited enough to nag their parents. Who would not love to do that? At first, we searched online for places to stay that would be cost effective and that would be located in a cool place so some could relax on the beach or travel in town or stay back and enjoy the grounds. But, we ended up planning the reunion at Cassie's house in New York to save money. It worked well because all of our first cousins live really close by and the rest of my first cousins only had to travel from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, which is… pretty easy.
When Cassie and I found out how many families could go, we got super excited. Eight families, all of us cousins are in high school or college, so there was a ton of good energy. This came in the form of car rides together, trips to get snacks tied up with a great playlist, Frisbee tournaments and bonding over s'mores. We played most likely to, which was a really funny way to get to know more about each other. Playing photo roulette made it easier to get to know more about each other, because we learned things that would never come up in conversation. Even the awkward times made us laugh. We stayed up super late and watched the night sky light up naturally from incredible amount of fireflies. It was literally a light show. I felt proud that I successfully put together a reunion.
My family actually thanked me, which supported my instinct that this was an important gathering. Since most of us in high school will be on our way to college soon, we've set the stage to keep in touch as we form meaningful relationships. I am following in my Nana's footsteps and will continue her legacy of maintaining strong family ties, love, and support for one another.