The Anglo-Indian great-grandparents my houseguests and I share — Wilfred and Ada Gasper, with children Wilfred, Evie and Emmaline, ca. 1913, in India.
Distant relatives came to visit my family last week — a second cousin I’d seen twice as a child, her husband and four boys aged 7, 5, 3 and 1. We arranged the entire family in one bedroom, positioning the little boys like sliding tiles to leave a tiny aisle of walkable floor. Their daddy was tired, having driven from the eastern half of the state. But their mother and I stayed up talking past midnight, delighted by the connections we found in family lore absorbed from our respective parents, first-cousin, first-generation immigrants who grew up together in India.
Just as our conversation turned up surprising facts possessed by different branches of the family, it unearthed something I’d nearly forgotten: the pleasure of company. Out here in a place “people only come to on purpose,” as I once heard someone joke, we don’t receive many family visits; my hostessing skills were as dusty as the windowsills in the bedroom my son vacated for our guests. My ability to connect with children still unable to reason logically had also fallen dormant. Half an hour before the guests arrived, I realized the only drinking cups in the house were heavy glass.
My third cousin had thought of that, too, and stopped along the way to buy an extra sippy cup for her youngest.
As it turned out, our baby abilities lived on: the next morning, the sound of a small cry woke my husband and me with a swift thoroughness the electric alarm clock does not possess. It had been a long time, we laughed, since we heard that sound.
The long Saturday passed in a most leisurely fashion: meals brought in by my mother, whose decades as a pastor’s daughter, pastor’s wife and excellent cook served us all well, intermittent trips to the playground across the street, and long visits in shifting groups as people came and went.
I learned how my cousin and her husband met and married. How they ended up in Kansas. How they adopted their two youngest children from Haiti just six weeks after they submitted application papers; the earthquake moved the process along far more quickly than they’d anticipated.
I told her how Liberal became my home 17 years ago. How the town rallied to help my family when I fell ill last year. How it is to educate children at home.
In other words, we told each other stories. We took our time, the way friends and family do in less driven cultures in other parts of the world. When my brother first spent time in Asia, he marveled at how guests did not hesitate to show up unannounced at 7 p.m. and stay until midnight, talking over endless cups of tea. A friend from Africa said the thing she missed the most — aside from the spongy “fufu,” a staple food the consistency of grits — was the easy, everyday intimacy woven into her home culture.
“People in America are just too busy,” she said with a sigh.
It was true 10 years ago when we had that conversation. It’s even more so today. Life gets busier, and we run to keep up without a question about whether all this activity is necessary.
The leisurely relationship-building I enjoyed last weekend is too easily edged out by deadlines and practices and appointments and meetings. Before long a person doesn’t notice its absence. In its presence, however, I felt suddenly sorrowful for how far I’d drifted from an open-door way of life.
One point of view might say my cousin’s family and mine didn’t accomplish much during our time together. We didn’t “do” anything.
Later, I wondered if I should have planned an outing — taken the boys to see the flying monkeys at the Land of Oz, or wandered through the vast hangar at the air museum. But without the “down time” we invested on the sofa and the playground swings, any excursions we attempted together would have felt more like tourism, where you show a surface friendliness to your fellow travelers with no expectation of ever truly knowing them.
I also would have missed out on the revelation that lodged in my mind during those long talks, sparked by the surprising and remarkable story of how two tiny boys from Haiti came to be a part of my own extended family.
“What made you want to adopt?” my mother asked.
A Bible study that examined social justice and how much God cares about people who live on the margins prompted the couple to act on a long-held idea, my cousin explained. To simply lament the plight of people who fall in the “have nots” category did not seem adequate.
Giving money is important, but “we wanted to find a way to personally do something to make a difference, in a way that would be part of our everyday lives,” she said.
Now four boys tumble around their house in what my cousin describes as “insane chaos.” She says this with a smile that tells the rest of the story. Inconvenience, messes, time-consuming interactions — what comprises parenting, family and human relationships — are nothing to avoid, not when the result is love, understanding and the lessons we can only learn from other people.
If you set aside the clamor, crumbs and dirty laundry, what my cousin and her husband have done is really pretty simple. They did not rescue “The Children of Haiti.” They did what they could: drew two boys into their family, where they are already firmly attached for the long haul — brothers, sons, cousins, grandchildren. Friends.
My life circumstances do not allow for adoption, but the notion of making time to connect with the people around me resurfaced in a tangible way as tiny John Peter placed his hand in mine for just a moment and offered a smile full of trust. The unexpected happiness I felt, startled me. Had I thought, “It’s too much trouble to have company. Our house is small. My energy is limited,” that moment would have been a missed opportunity instead of a gem-like memory.
It might sound sappy to insist that time to connect is more precious than an impressive schedule yielding social status, financial gain and self-gratification. But I know it’s true. A good portion of human connection, laughter and talk filled my house last weekend. I can’t think of any way I would rather have spent that time.
— May 23, 2010
