But I had an elderly Aunt say it best… she said that even though folks get on our nerves, family is wild and crazy and has issues, to her — most of all — the holidays (whichever one you celebrate) represented a time when everybody got together for a happy occasion versus a sad one. She made me reflect as I was hustling a 30 lb. bird to the table with a runner in front of me to shoo little kids out of the way of a too-hot rack (my cousin hollering, “Coming through hot!” BIG SMILE)… seemed that the older I got, the more funerals we were attending, instead of birthday celebrations, weddings, christenings, and the like—with an occasional family reunion added in there for good measure. Now it seemed that the only time my people all came in from far flung places was to say goodbye to the dearly departed. Not this year.

This year we all talked about it and decided to change the paradigm of sadness and to invest as much in fun times as we do in sad times (time-wise, that is.) My cousins all agreed, maaan, it takes work to keep kit & kin close, just like it does any other relationship… and the dynamics are no less challenging. However, the laughs when we all looked back, like drunk Uncle so-and-so sleeping it off on the sofa, Aunt whose-her-name arriving with a dish nobody can stand, swearing she can cook, and wanting her offering placed front and center so that everyone HAD to take a little on their plate, (LOL!), not to mention Auntie such&such who was the busy-body but wouldn’t wash a dish to save her life and arrives always as “the diva” to be waited on till we fuss her out, ha ha ha… OMG, this is the stuff of family legends and oral history. We had it as a rich tapestry growing up, and yet when all of my cousins and I looked around, we were allowing that to go by-the-by. We had to take ownership of the fact that, maybe our parents didn’t feel like it either, but they did it. Now it was our turn, and it wasn’t until we tried to pick up the mantle that we truly appreciated what that meant, the sacrifice it contained, and the responsibility they’d shouldered for years in end. Wow. I was blown away. We all laughed about that, suddenly realizing, DANG—we were the parents and older Aunties now. It was quite a profound realization.

My question was—when did that major shift happen? When did I get to be “Madea” for my family, and my other cousin get to be “Big Momma,” and when did “cousin who shall remain nameless” get to be “drunk Uncle sleeping it off in a chair watching football?” When did another couple of “not to be named in public” cousins get to be those Aunties that got talked about by the kids because they couldn’t cook, or didn’t help with the dishes, or droned on about mess the teens didn’t feel like hearing, ha ha ha! Or when did those Uncles get to be the one’s the kids fell out laughing about due to antics that only Uncles can provide?

It is all so weird when the baton gets passed. Thirty adults and ten little kids whizzing by being told they’d “get it” if they didn’t stop running, LOL… plus about 10 teenagers (since they brought boyfriends and girlfriends in from college) – they somehow became me and me and my older cousins became our parents… and the cycle of life continued. It was surreal. But in that, we were also blessed to have this big, crazy, dysfunctional family.

Now I can more clearly see my characters coming to life in every story…. Uh-huh… got the younger, cool Uncle, got the one who will say anything to anybody at any time, got the one who hits the liquor cabinet as soon as he walks in the door, got the philosophy brother Uncle who pours libations and we’ve gotta have a dual prayer to bless the food because he doesn’t believe in Thanksgiving (it’s a Westernized colonial thang that represents oppression, yada, yada, yada) and eats vegan green while making teenagers who ain’t trying to hear it be down with some science, LOL—Oh, the tales!… got the ready-to-fight Aunt, the cool Aunt, the good cooking little Momma Aunt, the “get on your last nerve” Aunt… the list goes on, BIG SMILE. I saw the VHL Compound unfold right before my eyes and knew that the characters live on, even as this last book was penned, because they came right out of my environment and heart.

So I can only say that I wish you and your family a fantastic Holiday Season… and hope that you had a blast watching the drama and contrast of family. It is always a trip!

Much Love & Light… Leslie!