Snow on the Daffodils

It snowed all morning, but it's supposed to reach 44 today. The snow won't be around for long. Fat robins are feasting at the feeders. The daffodils' yellow bonnets are covered, for now, with white veils. 

UNWELL

 Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) can be brutal. I'm not doing well right now. I'm going to take a holiday from blogging so that I can learn how to live with this condition and feel better. I hope to visit your posts while I'm vacationing. I'll be back in awhile. 

Weekend on the Severn River

 P enjoying view of the Severn River 

from the deck of our rental house

This past weekend, five cousins and two spouses rented a house on the Severn River near Annapolis, MD.  It was the first meeting for some of us.  Although P and I drove just 20 miles, the others flew in to Baltimore from Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

The five cousins are all women. I am the oldest, at 81. My sister is almost 78. One cousin is 77. I lost contact with her in 1946 when both my parents and hers were divorced. The other two cousins are sisters. The older is 62; the younger, 58.  Three years ago, I had no idea the younger two cousins existed. My husband had been researching his family on Ancestry.com when the youngest contacted him, saying I had turned up as a first cousin on Ancestry and asking how we were related. 

My dad's brother, who died in 1965, turned out to be the father of both my 77-year-old cousin by his first wife and also the two new cousins.  We are all glad we found each other. 

-the 77-year-old, who thought she was an only child all these years, is delighted to have two half sisters. I am also glad to have re-established contact with her.

-the youngest cousin always felt as if she didn't quite belong in the family she grew up with. The man she thought was her father often said, "You don't look like one of us." She was relieved to learn the results of her Ancestry test. Now there was an explanation for all the hurtful comments of adults and the nasty teasing of schoolmates that she endured while growing up. 

--her older sister delayed getting tested because she was afraid the truth would disrupt her family, but she finally took the Ancestry test.  At first, the truth took some getting used to, but

--her two other siblings eventually accepted their new status as half-brother and half-sister and have even said they'd like to be part of the new family. 

P and I met the youngest cousin at my sister's house two years ago.  This past winter all of us began getting together regularly via Zoom sessions. We all wanted to finally meet in person. And that's what we did this weekend. 

The three older cousins are reticent introverts. The new cousins are Forces of Nature: assertive, exuberant, extremely energetic. 

We're going to set up our own blog. 

A Childhood "Haunted" House

 Some years ago, my husband was back in Cleveland, OH. He decided to visit his childhood home. He was born in that house in 1939 and it was home to him and his siblings until he left for college in 1957. After his father retired in the mid-60's, his parents sold the house and moved to the old farmhouse they owned in Knox County, OH.

The house was in Garfield Heights, a Cleveland suburb. While he was growing up, P's neighbors were all White people, largely of Irish and eastern European origin. His parents had a party line, so P often picked up the phone to hear his next-door neighbor talking in Czech. One day, thinking she might suspect he was eavesdropping, he quickly hung up when he heard her say the word, "telephone".

P knew that the neighborhood had changed and that the house now belonged to a Black family, so he wasn't sure how welcome he'd be if he approached the owner. Noticing that the yard looked better than it had back in his day, he knocked on the front door. A middle-aged woman answered the door. From upstairs, what sounded to P like "a crabby old lady"--her mother?--called down to her: "Who's at the door?"

"It's OK," the woman replied to the old lady. P explained that he had grown up in the house. The woman was very friendly. She asked him to step inside. They chatted a bit, and then she asked, "While you're here, there's something I've always wondered about. There's a bump on the floor in the basement that looks like it's been covered over with cement. Do you know anything about that?"

Always quick on the draw, P replied, in an ominous tone, "Don't dig there!"

"What???" The woman was clearly horrified.

"Just kidding," he said, reassuringly. "Actually, I have no idea. That must have happened after we moved out."