I don’t have an incredibly large collection of childhood memories. What I have intact are small slivers of things that dangle like string lights from a willow tree, and I generally have to go searching for them through a catalog of time stamps; each big segment of my life characterized by some large life event, separated like chapters with very little continuity or similarity from one to the other, dimmed by time.
When I sit still and close my eyes and allow my earliest and happiest memories to come find me, the ones I don’t have to go searching for are the memories before my parent’s divorce where I spent time with my aunts, uncles, and cousins from my dad’s side of the family. Primarily my dad’s brother, his wife and their two children, which were only a few years older than I was. That was the branch on my family tree that had leaves, that were connected to other branches, a large trunk with deep roots that plunged far into the past (or what felt like far to me, a girl of 8 or 9). The branch we shared made me feel a sense of belonging and stability, and when I reflect on it now it validated my childhood for me during that time. Holidays, special occasions, all the normal reasons families look for opportunities to be together – those memories for me were shared with them. Those experiences felt safe and traditional in a way that gave me a lot of vibrance and made my childhood feel childlike.
After my parents split up, it felt like I was picked from the tree I had bloomed from and was transplanted to a totally separate place, asked over time to be a different type leaf, and sewn into a new family with foreign branches and roots I could not find, and did not feel connected to anyway. There were many years that went by where I lost touch with my dads family and i had no avenue to independently correct that in a way that felt accessible to me. In a lot of ways I was embarrassed by my situation and the validation I had come to feel, that sense of belonging I enjoyed for so long, felt out of reach and washed out. I didn’t know my place in the same way and I remember feeling exposed and uncertain about my identity and wondered if I could ever come back to the place I used to be part of.
Anyway, this post isn’t really about any of that, but is meant to be a testament to family, and love that transcends and overcomes even the bleakest of winters or droughts, and can return to serve and connect you to your true purpose of self, to warm you or quench your spirit, and can remind your childlike memories that you always belonged, that you were always loved, and that you were never forgotten or pushed out.
My Uncle Gary, Aunt Suzie, cousin Nathan and his wife Hallie and their son Preston came to Huntsville this weekend to visit us. Hallie and I had become good friends from afar over the last several years, each of us going through pregnancy a few years apart and staying connected through Instagram, I felt like she was a glimpse into the family I had drifted from. Through Hallie, I was able to feel close to my aunt and uncle again, seeing photos of them and following family holidays, it tugged on my heart and gave me something (and someone) to feel like there was still a thread there connecting me to them. Hallie is easy to love anyway, and her general friendliness and compassion was like flint striking out to find a blade of dry grass; it allowed these embers of lightness and familiarity to smolder over time. Prior to this past March, where we went to Texas for Spring break to see everyone, I hadn’t seen my family since the fall before Ellie was born. Gary stood beside me on my wedding day, but in the 14 years since then, the visits have been few but Gary always made the effort to reach out and call me through the years. But because our reunion over Spring break felt so incredible and effortless, they decided to all make the trip to come to Huntsville and all stay in our home for the weekend, and I am still floating from how amazing it was to have the ability to host my family (MY FAMILY) in our home, and for us to just be with one another, like three decades of intermittent connection hadn’t passed, but that we had always been in each other’s lives the way we had wanted. That we belonged together, and that my parent’s divorce and my dads death, and the 800 miles between Texas and Alabama didn’t make me undeserving of their love and my birthright to my surname Vasseur.
As an only child, married to another only child, (and having only one child now) I am not uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the idea of a small family circle. And I decided early into adult hood that family could be whatever you really wanted it to be. That you could find others on this earth to love unconditionally and forever, and that blood or surname didn’t have to dictate what we surround ourselves with or how we measure the legitimacy of our identity. But even so, I knew I always wanted to make more of an effort to reconnect with my Vasseur family, to find a way to make up for lost time and start a new chapter, one that Ellie could know and believe was hers from the beginning.
From Friday afternoon until Sunday mid-day, we had an incredible time together! Ellie and Preston got reacquainted and played, we talked and looked at old photos remembering the childhood I had loved so much and my Dad in his better days. We cooked and ate and delighted in each other’s company, and two days flew by and left me with such assurance and such peace. My Mom and Rob’s parents joined us, and the energy in our home Saturday night with everyone laughing and talking and being merry together was intoxicating. I remember dreaming of the days when we would have a home capable of sharing in this way, and to see it unfold before me this past weekend is something I will never forget. That night and the light emanating from it will never dim in my memory; the branches of this willow are mine and I am home.
Hallie made this treasure of a video capturing our weekend together, and I’ll never get over how much joy it brings me. It’s like I’ve found my way back to the childhood that I had outgrown before I was ready, and I’ve not only found it again, but I’m able to watch it begin anew in Ellie and Preston.
The Wayfaring Friend 