Ode to Nephews

Living on a different continent from your family-of-origin is a mixed bag. Sometimes you get to participate in family events.

Favorite nephew's graduation - check

But most of the time, you process them from a far. And, if you are old-school like me, you blog to simultaneously assuage your guilt for the distance while hoping they affirm your life choices.

Carmen wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t moved to Berlin. Side note, my in-laws' house in this photo is in the evacuation zone for the Spokane fires. If you’re the praying type, they can use it.

A few weeks ago, while I was not attending the scattering of my grandparents’ ashes on the border with Canada, I received an email from my dad that my grandma’s favorite nephew, Gary, died. 

I present a brief backstory that might need some revision should any family members read this. My grandmother, Lois O’Keefe, was the youngest of eight. My great-grandfather died while my great-grandmother was pregnant with Lois (something heart related?). Also, an older teenage brother died earlier that year (the flu?). Sometime earlier an older sister died at four years-old (appendicitis?). So we’ve got a forty-year “older” single-mom Jesse with four boys, Gary's mom, and baby Lois. 

My grandma was born in a log cabin in rural Washington state. I remember hearing some kind of story about how if someone built a cabin and lived in it for a certain number of years, the land became theirs. East Berliners would call that squatters rights. A more questioning mind would be concerned about indigenous land rights. But we’re just going to breeze past that and say that thankfully the family did have some physical assets because it’s the start of 1929. The great depression is around the corner. 

My grandparents lives were intertwined in the small-town rural kind-of-way. My great uncle Kelly O’Keefe was a pallbearer at the funeral of my grandpa Bob Beckley’s two older teen brothers who were killed in a car accident. Kelly would then later die flying over Germany in World War II. It’s at this point when my grandmother would chime in something to the effect of, “People don’t know what they are talking about when they long for the 'good old days'”. 

Bob is now referred to as “Grandpa Robert Ralph” at Casa Biggs lest anyone forget the epic origin of Crosby’s middle name.

The general family narrative was something to the effect of “things were hard, but we made the best of it.” So when I met Gary one-on-one during an impressionable time of my life, I was shocked - in a good way - to hear his take. He felt his feelings. He was still working through his traumas of life. If you were curious, he was going to let you know about it. It was one of the few times that a family member was open with me without a drink in his/her hand. He had hit the bottom years ago with the “just figure it out, just get over it” rule of life.

It would be a few years later that I would accidentally find my way to a recovery group. I read a byline in my church bulletin that said, “are you hurting?” I thought, “Why yes, thanks for asking.” I spent a season working the steps with a mentor and a group of multigenerational women. Circumstantially soon after my personal life accelerated in the dating, marriage, baby, etc front. I never made the time to circle back with Gary to let him know that his story was formative in who I am as a person. 

And so I'm late sharing it here, with my many, many readers. Gary's passing is a reminder to keep working the steps. The first of which should be every parent's mantra during the summer - admitting our powerlessness to (parent, keep kids entertained, control our anger, __________) and acknowledging that life has become unmanageable. But we do it one activity  day at a time:

Gary would approve of Hugo's fashion sense and sewing skills.

And we don't do it alone: 

And as an homage to Gary, we look good doing it:

Rest in peace Gary. We will miss you.