Quite a few years ago, we were on our way to the shore. We have been going to the same shore house for almost 50 years! It is not fancy or new but it's a big old Victorian that has room for literally everyone, no matter what. I've slept in every bedroom from the attic to the room called the chapel room. I can remember my brother sticking his wet finger in the outlet to see if he would get electrocuted. (He did get shocked.) I remember my freshly bathed and pajamaed sister climbing back into the full bathtub to play a little more. I remember my cousin and I took a boat ride from some cute guys we had just met, from the bar back to our street. I remember my other cousin, a lifeguard, telling us which bars we should go to and which parties we shouldn't. I remember being a newlywed and going with my husband for the first time. I remember bringing each of my children down for their first time to see the ocean. Each time we go there we are filled and refilled with the love of the generations that have shared it. We gather with aunts and cousins and grandparents. We feel at home. I even use the address as my secret password! And so, on the way there when Matt was about 3, he asked if the "Others" would be there. We had never referred to them as the Others before. He just knew that they were the family who affectionately greeted him and gathered him up and held him each year. The Others are my two aunts and the countless cousins who usually share the place with us for a few days while we are there. Matt was used to seeing my parents and his uncles and aunts, but the Others are the special extended family that round out our inner circle, the people on the perimeter who make us feel even more tucked into this large and loving group. The Others make us feel like we belong.
We actually call the Others the "Grans," a name that reveres my Gran, my grandmother, a wonderful icon of a woman, who was known for her hats and her gloves, was president of the PTA and the Women's Club, who cooked for 20 people every night for years on end, who painted her nails and never wore pants, who played the piano and went back to school when she was 75. When she got an A in her writing class, she never went back because "they had nothing to teach her." She ate toast and coffee every morning for breakfast. I remember her scraping the burnt crumbs off the toast over the trash can so as not to waste it, and adding about 10 spoonfuls of sugar to her Taster's Choice. She probably would have hated Starbucks. So we affectionately use the name Gran to stand in for the great aunts my kids are growing up knowing. Gran-Judy, Gran-Jeanne, and Gran-Pepper, my mom. The Others. The people who keep us balanced and feeling at home no matter how old we get. They make us feel young again, even just for a moment.
We are missing the Others this year. While we may limit our visits to our parents and siblings, it seems that extended family visits are out of the question. Whether for fear, or precaution, or distance, or age, we cannot see the people we love so dearly this Christmas. And it is so sad. I remember going to Gran's house and she would cluck over us and lavish us with gifts. Even just a hug from her was a gift! Even though Gran has been gone for over 20 years, we are missing our connection to her, that tie that binds us, through the people who knew her best.
Every one of us has our Others. Even my first graders have their own Others. A boy asked me one day if the Big Kids were back at school. The middle and high schoolers had gone to virtual learning early in the semester. I told him that half the big kids were coming back to campus. He excitedly ran to tell the rest of the class that "The big kids are coming back! The big kids are coming back!" While he may not know their names or see them that regularly, the Big Kids were his own extended circle that made him feel like he belonged to something bigger. And he misses them!
I have other Others, the acquaintances I run into in the grocery store each week, the people I see just to say hello to at church or in the school parking lot, the PTA moms from back in the day, people who make me feel like I belong to something, some kind of community. So many people I am missing right now. And I know we are all feeling this same emptiness for the Others we may just have taken for granted. Never again. And there are some people who have never gone away and whom we will never take for granted again - the Starbucks barista, whom my mother gladly tipped 100%. The grocery workers, the essential workers, the nurses and the doctors, the police and firefighters who are still showing up no matter what. We thank them and applaud them and know that they will be here through it all.
I know that when this is over, we will be so ecstatic to see our loved ones and embrace them again. Our hugs will hold all the pain and sorrow of a year of not seeing each other as well as the joy and elation of finally being home again. We will make it through and our Others will gather around us once more. I cannot wait. Then it will really feel like Home for the Holidays.
