The Last Sunday of May

I’m somehow related to every person on this beach. This is only maybe a third of the people I spent this past Sunday with, nearly all related to me through blood or marriage. On top of that- a number of relatives weren’t able to be there. In other words- my family is huge.

Granted, there should probably be an asterisk next to some of these folks. My cousin’s step-daughter’s friend would not qualify as family under most definitions. The cousins of my cousins? Debatable.

But almost every year for over 30 years my aunt and uncle have hosted us at their home on the southern Connecticut shore for a Memorial Day gathering. My aunt is my mom’s sister, and they have 4 other siblings. My uncle’s brother married one of those other siblings, so there’s some serious doubling up of relatives going on here. Also second cousins, neighbors, even parish priests stop by.

A big part of the day has been competition. My cousin Peg would invent races for the younger ones, and the “grown-ups” would have an egg toss. It was almost genteel, especially the year Grandma and Grandpa L. were secretly given a hard-boiled egg and Grandma L. never caught on, even as the shell began peeling away!

As the kids became grown-ups, and a new generation joined us, the competitions continued. The egg toss became a water-balloon toss. We quickly outgrew the yard and the finalists continued in the road. Soon the number of competitors outgrew even that, and the water-balloon toss was moved up to the beach along the Long Island Sound, just a short walk away.

So for the past few years we’ve arrived en masse and taken over a section of beach, away from the lifeguards, near the jetty. Cars slow down to watch as they go by. Folks walking their dogs ask who we are, what we’re doing. When we tell them I detect a slight note of jealousy.

And they should be at least a little jealous. We’ve got something special here. Most of us see each other only this one time a year, but the traditions are entrenched. The fourth generation continues to grow, and some of them are adults themselves. We share dreams, we share hopes, we share joys, we share hardships, we share loss. And we share the last Sunday of May.