Previously: I urge my daughter to visit us again since her father is showing more signs of memory loss, and he’s having trouble walking. Since she hates Florida and flying, she suggests we meet in Las Vegas where there are fresh sights and things to do. After lengthy consideration, I decide it’s too much for Frank. Nichole understands.

Chapter 94 ends:
In retrospect, with planned tours and entertainment at our last visit, Nichole put a wall between us. Slim chances to get her alone and talk about old times. We felt we were losing our daughter. Acting classes had taught her how to wear a mask. The grandiose Halloween wedding thirteen years ago foreshadowed that.

Another three a half years went by before we saw our daughter again.
 

In the meantime, my favorite cousin Jill decided a family reunion should be planned. She had lost her brother fourteen years ago. I had lost my sister in 2009. In both cases, we weren't really close to our siblings. Jill didn't get along with her mother either and publicly disowned her, but reconciled when Aunt Dee ended up in a nursing home. 

My parents had passed. Still, between Anne and her brood (four sons, six grandchildren) plus Cousin Edward and Cousin Judy  (my mother's brother's children) and their three children, we had enough for a party.  Did I mention Jill had two daughters and two grandchildren as well? Three divorces to her name left her now single and yes, happy.  I figured nephews, nieces and cousins numbered around twenty. In order to include my sister’s handicapped son Bobby, the gathering would be in Tampa, Florida, the summer of 2013.

For the past thirty years, I had connected with my relatives for the most part at Christmas time: family photos from the grandchildren in Sacramento, California; two-page single-spaced newsletters from Anne in South Dakota, and her oldest son in Simi Valley, California;  generic cards from blood relations in Oregon and Tennessee; then photo cards again from two nephews, also in California and one in Wyoming. My sister Barb also kept in touch by card on the holiday when she was alive. The location would differ according to her latest promotion. 

I congratulated myself on marrying a man who had no brothers or sisters to entertain. His identical twin had died at birth. His mother never married. Her four brothers, his uncles, treated him unkindly. Frank wanted nothing to do with his family. To this day, he can only guess from two photos the identity of his father, a man who dated his mother for years, but died of pneumonia before ever seeing his son.

"Do you want to go the reunion?" he asked.

"Not really. I have nothing in common with my relatives except for Cousin Jill and Bobby, of course. Anne’s sons are cool, but only one can make it."

Looking back, I wish we had gone. After all, family is family. But Frank had fallen a month before, when he bent over to get the newspaper. Nothing broken. Still it affected his bad heel and weakening legs.

Chris and his family had no interest in meeting strangers. I didn’t expect Nichole and Jeff to board a plane either. Our family tree wavered as each generation turned to new pursuits. Anne was last of the Jesses (Mom’s maiden name) to follow the ministry. No more teachers either. Cousins, uncles, nephews and nieces (even my son) all worked in cubicles with new technology. How boring, I thought.

Okay, a little sideline here. When Chris talks techie, his wife falls asleep. (He told me that. She denies it.) Sorry son, I turn off too. It’s a dull language that generates geek passion only.

Frank didn't want to go because he still held a grievance against my half-sister. He couldn’t get past her unchristian behavior at Mom’s memorial service and the wake that followed.

"She accused you of trying to steal Peggy’s jewelry," he stormed.

"You don’t have the facts right." I said. "She said I accused her of stealing, and it wasn’t jewelry. I just asked what happened to Mom’s boom box."

"I don’t remember it that way," he grumbled. Thirteen years had passed since the incident. Recently, I came across a statistic that dementia starts in the brain 30 to 50 years before symptoms appear. Could this be the anger and paranoia I’d been dealing with off and on through the years?

Anne was still blood. She had her faults. No use arguing with her. She knew everything. Still, I admired her courage to leave home and follow her dream late in life.  Both she and Lynn had been active in the Methodist church for years and sponsored tours to the Holy Land. After years of study, she earned a degree in theology and found the Lutheran teachings more to her liking. Thus did she follow in the footsteps of her great grandparents and their son, Carl Jesse, my mother's father.

Returning to her mid-west roots, Anne found a church in Groton, South Dakota, that served several small towns. That was in 1985. Her hubby stayed in California, refusing to grant her  a divorce. "We don't do that in my family," he stormed. Fourteen years later, he retired and joined her. By then, she had bought a Bed and Breakfast business near a lake and served only as a substitute pastor when needed.

Okay, so this doesn’t sound like a big deal, but Anne had severe sight issues. She was diagnosed with macular degeneration in her late fifties. She went through painful surgeries and eventually lost an eye. In her mid-sixties, she also lost her left leg from the knee down. A big fan of horseback riding, she mounted a steed at a nearby ranch and joined others. Somewhere along the trail, a noise spooked her horse. He bucked and threw her. With presence of mind, she saw him rear and lose his balance. With a quick roll of her body she escaped a massive crush. But the horse’s rear flank landed on her left leg. The poor animal had to be shot, much to Anne's distress.

She didn’t let her prosthetic limb keep her from riding again, although she listened now to the owner who had warned her the first time,   "He's not as  tame as the others. A little skittish at times."

"Don't worry. I can handle him,"  Anne assured him.  I imagined the smugness and superior attitude of her voice.

Both leg and eye handicap put her on my pedestal in spite of her know-it-all attitude. But what I admired most about my half-sister was her laugh. Huge and musical and sincere. Along with the art of whistling and rolling my R’s, I could never master even a giggle, let along a guffaw without a snort.

Getting back to the subject of reunions, talk about astral thought.  As I finished this chapter, I heard from Jill for the first time in six years. She sent an e-mail:                             
                                      I plan to be in Miami come August. My high school
                                     reunion. Can we get together? I am thinking of having
                                     another Reunion,  this time in Tennessee. That's
                                     because Judy Jesse (Horn) lives there, and her
                                     husband has difficulty walking. I expect to plan it
                                     for early August 2017.

Oh, if only Frank felt up to going, but he’d want to drive. No way!  Who knows what shape he’ll be in a year from now.

To be continued.