Lunch with two favorite cousins has stirred in me recollections of family history that we all share.

Patricia, the older of the two was born in 1920. Though she does not think of herself as the family matriarch, her longevity clearly qualifies her as such.

For me, she holds special authority: she is the only person left in this world who can tell me about my mother in the days before her marriage to my father.

For her first five years, Patricia lived next door to my mother, her aunt, in Peabody, Massachusetts. Even when her family moved to the western part of the state, she stayed in touch with her.

The other cousin, Jean, had just celebrated her 79th birthday, a month before I will take note of mine. The two of us thus rank as other prime authorities on the history of our extended family. We are especially qualified to talk about Aunt Mary, a woman of loveable eccentricities, who doted on us both when we were children.

Like other relatives who come together too rarely, we began by exchanging photos. This proved an effective and enjoyable way of catching up with weddings, births, careers, deaths, and other sadder but significant events.

Among the photos, one merits special mention. Dating from the early 1990s, it shows Patricia’s mother who, at a great age, posed with her daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and great-great grandaughter. This image of five generations of women, old and young, will bear witness to gifts of longevity and fecundity bestowed on this family branch.

Another image that will linger with me was a photo of Patricia’s late husband Dick. Taken from an old-fashioned college yearbook page, it shows him in his Rutgers’ football uniform and listed his abundant accomplishments. He seemed to be All-Everything in his undergraduate days, before he became an officer in the U.S. Army during World War II. I came to know him well and always admired his robust good looks and engaging personality.

Some members of the next generation to ours have proven fabulously successful in highly lucrative careers. No one has ever accused me of success similar to that enjoyed by these nieces and nephews and second cousins. I rejoice in their good fortune while  hoping that it will not spoil them nor harm their personal relationships.

(If this last sentiment seems a bit moralistic and even patronizing, please attribute it to a genetic inheritance often attributed to my success-fearing Irish ancestors.)

The generation that comes next after mine and that of my two cousins has, of course, inherited many of our own traits. These younger relatives are sometimes easily recognizable as descendents of our parents.

However, we agreed on at least two major differences. First, marital break-ups are much more common in the younger generation than in our own. Patricia, Jean, and I attribute the difference to the power that the Catholic tradition of our family had over us. In this instance, that power produced mixed results.

When I was growing up, it was hard to find fellow Catholics who were divorced. Of course, there were not a few whose marriages had broken up, but they were regarded as exceptional. Both my cousins consider that to have been a dubious blessing because, in many instances, it kept together partners who should have split.

The other phenomenon that virtually every extended family now knows is gay and lesbian sexuality. My two cousins and I had similar experience growing up: we did not even know what homosexuality was. Until I reached my early 20s, I was unaware of its existence.

Now, I’m glad to report, members of my generation have accepted this fact of life readily. Those younger than we are find full acceptance much more gracefully than could have been imagined in the past.

Hearing of relatives who died young always brings special sadness. Why, one must ask, were they singled out for short lives when the family has produced so many who lived to be old? I continue to mourn those who departed prematurely and the parents who lost them.

When Patricia greeted me on this occasion, she immediately remarked on my white hair. She claimed it becomes me but one has to wonder if that is what she really thought. Instead, she might have felt the shock that nearly everyone experiences when they encounter someone they have not seen for a while.

“My word, you do look old,” she may have said to herself. This sentiment readily comes to mind when the person you see is someone that you have always thought much younger than yourself, ─ even he or she, if they last long enough, seems at a far remove from the youthfulness you remember.

When lunch was over, we lingered longer, reluctant to give up talk about family matters. However, the time came to leave and we departed, not without the customary assurances of doing this more often.

Richard Griffin