If you could go back in time to a day from your childhood, when would it be?
I’d go back to a summer day in 1986. I’d be 8 years old in my back yard on the edge of a canyon in San Diego. Jets from “Top Gun” would periodically fly over the house, but nobody would notice because jet noise was so common. My swing set would be crawling with cousins, our house packed with extended family. The day would be sweet, like the sherbet punch I drank. I’d stick olives on my fingers and wave to my beagle, Lucy.
Sometimes ordinary days are the ones that are perfect — but we don’t realize this until they’re gone.
My children have days like this, too; days that are precious but that breeze by unappreciated, like when we drive down to Gig Harbor to visit my husband’s aunt and uncle. Cousins scour the beach for oysters and sand dollars. The water is warm enough to wade in without squealing. Adults sip drinks on the deck while yellowjackets swarm over the smoked salmon. Tomatoes ripen in the hot summer sun, like nature’s candy.
When we’re little, it’s easy to take family reunions for granted, as well as what we learn from our extended family. Cousins are our shadow siblings, like us, but different. We share the same grandparents and sometimes the same name, but it’s like cousins live our lives in another dimension.
What if our family had more money, or less? What if our parents took us to a different church, or no church at all? What if we were the cousin who bestowed the hand-me-downs, instead of wore them or vice versa? It’s like gazing through the looking glass at our life rearranged.
Now that I’m older, I appreciate every moment with my extended family. Decades pass between visits. It takes a major life event to warrant the expense of travel. Then there’s so much pressure, that the easiness of childhood is gone. Is the house clean enough? Will my children behave? What if too much time has passed?
This past week I’ve been preparing to host a family reunion in my back yard for 35 people that will happen a few days before my sister gets married. I wish I could be the kid doing cartwheels across the grass instead of the mom who was monitoring three Crock-Pots of chili. I wish that I could climb on a swing set instead of worry about vacuum lines on the carpet and whether or not I bought enough beer. Most of all, I wish that my children could know my cousins as friends, instead of strangers.
If I could go back to a day in 1986, I’d bring my son and daughter with me. They’d be the only ones spooked by an F-14 flying over the house but, oh, what a glorious day it would be.
Jennifer Bardsley publishes books under her own name and the pseudonym Louise Cypress. Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, on Twitter @jennbardsley or on Facebook as The YA Gal.
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