“Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.” ~ George Eliot.

It seems obscene to say this, but fifty years ago I was a senior in high school (in Upper Sixth Form as we say in the old British system).  I had lived most of my life in Jamaica, despite being born in the UK.  Since some of those UK years I was very young, Jamaica was what I knew and loved.  No need to think about the weather before getting dressed, the only concern was whether a sunny day would turn to rain, and since the rainy season alternated with periods of drought, even that could be predicted.  In England, they joke (with a straight face), you can experience four seasons in one day!

Getting ready to leave high school, I was already clear that I would be going on to nursing school.  Since my older siblings had all returned to the UK after completing high school, it bucked the trend when I announced that I was applying to go to nursing school in Jamaica.  My mother’s stance was standard: if you stay home after you finish high school, you will contribute.  My father’s stance was unspoken.  He would not interfere with his children’s plans, except that you could sense when he did not agree.  Anyway, what did I care.  Jamaica was my home.

But then something interesting happened.  It seemed that all of my parents’ children (not counting our adopted sister) would be in the UK for Christmas.  Only two of the five were living in the UK at the time.  One sister and her husband lived in Christiana, Jamaica and one lived with her family in Papua New Guinea.  Yes, the traveling gene had been passed down a generation or two (my grandmother had been born to Welsh immigrants in Patagonia, Argentina!).

My parents decided that we would join them. We would not be spending Christmas in the cool hills of Clarendon, where Christmas breeze chills the early morning risers, but in England, where it is cold all day!  It was an interesting adventure, and for a family that was used to living apart, a Christmas treat.  Even more fun, one of my sisters had just had her first baby (happy birthday Ruth!), and another sister was in her first trimester of her first pregnancy (50 beckons, Luke!). 

I remember feeling like a stranger in the land I was born, and yet some things were familiar. It was strange to have days that didn’t get light until eight in the morning, and evenings that drew in around four.  The crowds on the street doing last-minute Christmas shopping spoke in strange accents. I believe we were in Liverpool at the time, so the Liverpudlian accent was everywhere (picture Paul McCartney!).

When I returned to Jamaica, I began to think about England, the England I didn’t know well.  What if?  I thought.  What if?  If I stayed in Jamaica to go to nursing school, I would never know if I could have lived happily ever after in England.  If I went to nursing school in England, and hated it, I could always return to Jamaica afterwards.  Perhaps I should give myself that option.  I swear I saw my father exhale with relief when I made my announcement.  I would be applying to go to nursing school at Manchester Royal Infirmary. 

Isn’t it ironic that I have ended up living most of my adult life in South Florida? The answer, after all, was neither of the above.  And just like those travelers before me, I have spent most of my time away from my closest relatives.  Except that the rest of the travelers tended to drift homeward.  My great-grandmother decided she did not want to bury any more of her children, and the family returned to Liverpool from Argentina when my grandmother was thirteen.  They then tried Canada, but she declared she did not want to freeze to death, and that adventure lasted less than a year.

The upside of raising your family away from your family, is that aunts and uncles arrive organically, by choice.  For my kids, distant cousins on their father’s side eradicated the distance and the family draws close many times a year.  But those further away visited Miami when they turned sixteen (a tradition started with one cousin, and continued through the family), and the UK branch all had their taste of the US. 

I recently binge-watched the series ‘Reservation Dogs’, and if you haven’t watched it, you should.  Gaining insight into life on the reservation (another atrocity perpetrated on those who most rightfully belong in the US), it is both entertaining and enlightening.  I recently read a comment from a Native American, describing their family connections.  They don’t have ‘Great-aunts’, all of their grandmother’s sisters are called Grandma.  Their cousin’s kids are their nieces and nephews.  There are no second or third cousins, ‘no-one is removed’, everyone is cousin. In fact, first cousins are brothers and sisters.  Which pulls family even closer together.

I remember being quite annoyed when Jamaicans would introduce a cousin, and it would turn out that it was their third cousin’s child.  And I would be drafting a diagram trying to work out how they were actually related.  But why would it have to be so complicated? Somewhere in the past, you had an ancestor in common.  Why be so clinical? 

This Friday morning, as it seems as if the world has gone even madder than usual, I am pondering on the meaning of family.  Since it appears we all must have ancestors in common, how can we let land and power get in the way?  How can we lose sight of the plight of our cousins, while the planet boils and climate is about to tip over?  How can we be so short-sighted? 

Have a wonderful weekend, Family! And may we always have cousins to join in our good times and bad; may we have grandparents to teach us wisdom, and grandchildren to remind us of the future.

One Love!

Namaste.