It's All Relative: First snow foretells the start of columnist's favorite season

A big family reunion with many of my 20-plus cousins – and I hope many of their kids, and their kids’ kids – is already being planned for this summer, and the anticipation makes me realize how lucky I am to have such a large extended family.

Despite a wide age difference, our families were close when we were kids – usually getting together at least every Thanksgiving and Christmas and hunting season. Now some of our offspring hardly know each other – in fact, us cousins hardly know each other’s children – and wouldn’t at all except for sporadic camping reunions at places like Emigrant Springs and Hilgard Junction state parks.

The importance of regular reunions was driven home by the death of my 87-year-old uncle Bill this winter. A feeling of sadness at losing this tall, spare and wonderful man – a retired Pilot Rock wheat rancher who loved hunting, fishing, dogs and his family (especially my late aunt) – mingles with the knowledge he was ready to go. There was also gladness that he had been able to enjoy a final family gathering in July, the first in several years. He shared the day as we ate potluck and caught up with each other’s lives at the Tollgate cabin of cousin Jim, reminiscing about the past we shared and exploring family history.

My uncle went home, though, before night fell and we gathered around the bonfire under the stars with cousin Coyote Joe (who used to play at the Gold Room in Joseph many years ago) and his guitar, trying to remember the lyrics of cowboy and trucking songs. My son-in-law, who comes from a small family in suburban New Jersey and was attending his first extended reunion of his in-law clan, made a hit by knowing all the words to and singing “Convoy.”

One of the last to leave the fire that night was my aunt La France, who is in her 80s and going strong. Age is a relative thing, and she and her only surviving sibling, my aunt Cressie, are still young. They have a pact that neither of them will pass on to the afterworld until the other one does. That means we’ll have them both around forever, which suits all of us just fine.

I’m sure almost everyone who’s lived a few decades or more can identify with the feeling that time is zipping by much too fast when it comes to losing beloved older family members who have always been there.

There’s also the way that the years have been like a stage make-up artist, gradually transforming my older cousins into wrinkly, white-haired versions of their younger selves. I’m sure they can’t help but notice their little cousin Lanie has also been changed, into a plump middle-aged grandma, in this stage play of life.

Anyway, after last summer’s reunion, we pledged that in 2005 we’d have one that was even bigger, with more of the younger generation. Many of us got together again this winter, sadly, for my uncle’s funeral, and started laying plans for a happier summer gathering.

While each family is unique, with a wonderfully individual mix of people, the fact they are also the same was brought home to me one year when I drove into Emigrant Springs State Park up to where I thought our family was gathered.

There were older folks sitting at picnic tables or on lawn chairs, women setting out food, children running around. As I got out of the car with my ice chest, all of sudden I realized with a shock that this was the wrong family – I didn’t know one person there! It sure looked like our clan, except it was made up of all strangers.

Anyway, I wish everyone could have a big family and be planning a reunion, like me. However, periodic get-togethers are important even with a small family (contact a couple of second cousins twice removed to add spice, if you need to).

Families are the part of life that root you both to the past and to the future.