Family Feuds

Wifey and I schlepped up to Boynton Beach to attend the wedding of my cousin Jeff's boy Scott. Jeff and his brother Michael are my favorite cousins. I see them rarely, but when we get together, it's like no time has passed. We arrived just as the non religious wedding guy was pronouncing the new couple soul mates, due to bad GPS advice. The contraption led me to SOUTH Federal Highway instead of NORTH. No matter -- the bar was open, and we mingled with other cousins --Linda and her husband Steve. My mother is one of 5 siblings, and there are a total of 16 first cousins. Aunt Dottie, who died years ago, has the oldest, Arlene, who is 70 I think, and I'm the youngest one, about to turn 51. I think Jeff and his son invited most of us, and only Linda, my sister Trudy, and I made it. And most live in or near South Florida. Worse, in talking to Linda, we learned that she's barely talking to her sister Marlene over support issues of their elderly parents, and still has anger toward her other sister Arlene (yes, my brilliant Aunt and Uncle named identical twins Arlene and Marlene) as well as her brother Eddie. Jeff and his sister Janet stopped talking over supposed thefts of estate money from my Uncle Abe, and his brother Michael, who drank the Kosher Kool Aid and became a "modern orthodox" Jew wouldn't come since his nephew married outside the religion. What a mess! Tolstoy was right about unhappy families being unique in their unhappiness. The mixture of family pathology is remarkable. Sadder, Scott, who was close to his grandpa, my late Uncle Abe, never mentioned him. The only mention of the older generation was Abe's second wife, Arden, who replaced Aunt Lorraine. When he recognized this Janey come lately as the "grandma," my sister Trudy and I screwed up our faces. I guess this is the way of the modern extended family. The truth is, at least among these cousins, we have little in common with each other. The only time most of my cousins call me is when they want free legal advice. Although I was happy to comply when I first became a lawyer, that got rather old over the years. Linda had me on the phone a few weeks ago essentially asking me where her daughter could find a quality divorce lawyer -- for free! Still, we enjoyed our time last night. Jeff's daughter Marni is a delight -- she's a practicing GI doc married to a crackerjack young cardiologist. They have 2 lovely daughters, and Jeff's wife Lynn is more a second mother than grandmother to them -- they cling to her and adore her. Wifey and I decided that Jeff and Lynn ARE our kind of folks. Jeff asked again for us to get together, now that we're all empty nesters. Maybe we will, but because we truly like each other, not out of some antiquated family connection. Those days are long, long gone.