Oh my – it’s Thanksgiving again – time to post my radio essay first broadcast on WFPL Louisville, 89.3 FM, January 4, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by Michael Jackman.

In scattered families, the holiday break is time for the ingathering of the exiles. So there I was last week, driving to Amelia Island, Florida from Louisville for a mini reunion with mom, sis, nephew, and sis’s new husband, who were coming down from Boston.

We’d lost my stepfather rather suddenly to cancer last year, and this was the first time we’d all be together since then.

Family reunions are stressful. Fifteen hours on the road spread out over two days gives one ample time for fear. Luckily, this year I didn’t have to go it alone–I brought along Dana, who I’d just started dating a few weeks ago.

“It’s not like you’re meeting my family,” I said. She just looked at me. “Okay, you are meeting my family, but it’s not that kind of meeting my family.”

I explained that her job was to act as a buffer, and also to help with the driving. She accepted her assignment gracefully, after I promised long walks by the beach where she might see palm trees, pelicans, porpoises, and the occasional nuclear submarine headed back to base.

As soon as we arrived, it started. By “it” I mean the jibes and comments–as familiar and worn as a groove in an old carpet.

When I rummaged for glasses to get some water, my sister said, “Nope. Wrong shelf, glasses are over there.” She pointed with some glee at another cabinet.

She loves pointing out that I never know where anything is–a reference to her role as the dutiful visiting daughter, contrasted with mine as the prodigal son, whose return was still under suspicion.

And there were the inevitable garbage jokes. Mom handed me every little bag of garbage to take out. This, she said, was to make up for all the times I refused to do it as a child.

“You’ve made it to your teens,” mom quipped, halfway through the week.

During all this, my companion sat serenely. After all, she had avoided her own family trauma by immersing herself in mine–and mine had no power over her.

Scattered families–you grow up together, compete for love and attention together, and then you fly the nest. While you’re busy maturing and molting those old feathers somewhere else, you still think you know each other. But you don’t. You only know each other as you were, not as you are.

When you get together, it’s tempting to spend a lot of time counting your failings, but a time comes toward the end of the trip when you start counting blessings.

Here’s the sister who baked all my birthday cakes. Here’s the brother who cooked his sister latchkey-kid frozen dinners because mom had to work, and here’s the mom who took in stray cats and mended crows with broken wings.

And here she is today, still healthy at 68 and on the verge of tears several times an hour because her children and grandson have come to see her, all together, as a family. And though we faced the fresh absence of my famously cranky stepfather, mom told stories about him that made us laugh and brought him back to the table.

And as promised, the beaches were lovely. Dana didn’t see any porpoises, but there were palm trees, and pelicans, and even one just-surfaced nuclear submarine, returning from its long journey back to base.