{"id":1244,"date":"2009-11-25T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/25\/sisters-and-aunts-and-daughters-and-nieces-and-holidays\/"},"modified":"2014-03-15T21:09:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T21:09:46","slug":"sisters-and-aunts-and-daughters-and-nieces-and-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/25\/sisters-and-aunts-and-daughters-and-nieces-and-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Sisters and Aunts and Daughters and Nieces and Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"Rockwell<\/a> Thanksgiving always makes me think of the people who are missing.
\n By now that's almost an entire generation: my parents, aunts, uncles
\nand grandparents.  We all came together at our house.  As the oldest
\ncousin, I got to help in the kitchen and set the table. Sounds lame but
\nit felt very grownup.  Not that that lasted for long.  Over the years
\nwe went from three to six to nine cousins, producing plays to perform
\nafter dinner, playing Sardines and Murder, telling secrets and wreaking
\ncivilized havoc.<\/p>\n

My favorite memory, though, was time with the sisters: my mom and my aunts<\/a>.
\n One lived nearby but the other came with her family from Cleveland so
\nwhen they were all together they wanted to talk.  They'd sit in my
\nparents' room for ages; they let me hang around too.  In a way, all of
\nus gathered on the bed those afternoons, and later in the kitchen after
\ndinner, washing dishes, is women passing along stories and traditions, preserving the wisdom of
\nthe tribe.<\/div>\n

I had no idea then of the value of those times.  It
\nwasn't just being treated like "one of the girls," it was the sisterly
\nwarmth, the laughter and sudden emotion, eye welling up, when one aunt
\nspoke of living so far from "home."    Now, probably 50 years later, I
\ncan see her leaning against the wall, her sisters looking toward her
\nwith understanding sympathy.  I can hear them talking about their
\nparents, my grandparents, one difficult, both disappointed with their
\nlives.  For a little while, the burden of worry lifted a bit as they
\nshared it.<\/p>\n

They were part of what is literally another world;
\nhats and gloves, scars from the Depression, government service during
\nWorld War II, an abiding sense of appropriateness.   Like Betty Draper,
\nthey left careers to stay "home with the kids."  Their lives were so
\ndifferent from ours, constrained and regulated — lives that many
\ndaughters went to work to insure against.  <\/p>\n

What we forget is
\nthat, even then, there was sisterhood.  Maybe it wasn't as powerful and
\ncertainly it wasn't as organized, but for me it still modeled a
\nsolidarity, loyalty and love of the company of women that I still
\ncherish.  And it's so exciting to see us all now, taking that example
\nalong with the many farther afield, to enhance our larger community –
\nstill a family of sisters – from one end of the Internet to – well – to
\nthe whole wide world.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at BlogHer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving always makes me think of the people who are missing.  By now that's almost an entire generation: my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  We all came together at our house.  As the oldest cousin, I got to help in the kitchen and set the table. Sounds lame but it felt very grownup.  Not that … Continue reading Sisters and Aunts and Daughters and Nieces and Holidays<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4,42,7,29],"tags":[363,364,362,365,204,361,360],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-family","category-life","category-women","tag-aunt","tag-cousin","tag-generations","tag-memories","tag-mother","tag-sisters","tag-thanksgiving"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-k4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1907,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}