Reunion – Guy Vanderhaeghe

Guy Vanderhaeghe - April 5, 1951

Nice – a Canadian author. Good to see ‘em represented up there.

Of course...Alice Munro – she ain’t too shabby – and there will be plenty more of her to come.

Guy worked in a library for a bit so that automatically lends me to favor him.

Reunion.

I’ve never been to an “official” family reunion. I think the closest I really come to one is when M and I make our trips over to Romania. Lately, they’ve been occurring about every 15 or so months. We won’t be going for some time now with the baby on the way because we intend to make our next trip over with him/her when he/she is old enough.

When we make out trips over there is usually a day or two that the entire family is able to gather. Both of M’s brothers, their wives and their daughters. M’s parents are there of course.

There have been a couple of times where things have been not so pleasant...but overall, each gathering is very nice. Plenty of food, drink and stories about what the three kids did in their younger years.

At times there are tensions between the brothers and the brothers wives but overall, they keep things very civil and there has never been a situation where communication between the family members has been disrupted. Usually M and I are the ones that hear of the problems that each member has with the other and we hold those pronouncements to ourselves – but knowing them hurts sometimes.

I really think that I’m fortunate to be spared the real uncomfortable situations that can arise at these reunions.