What children know-

Children know when they are raised and cherished in the midst of a loving family. I was lucky to be raised by caring adults, both immediate and extended relatives. Adults who took the time to really talk with me, not to me, and took an interest in what I liked.

Holidays were spent with family members from both my father’s and mother’s sides- from gala Christmas Eve parties to peaceful Easter dinners. The two sides of my family were not close and often didn’t seem to understand each other well, coming from such different backgrounds and places, but they were always there standing on both sides of my life enclosing and defining my world with love and affection.

Every Sunday we visited my mother’s mother and in those golden afternoons I enjoyed her small town home and learned about her parents and the farm we owned from 1846 until the early 1960s. Time and time again she would take out the old box of photos and tell me who they each were. Years later when those photos passed to me I realize I knew them as “Aunt Ida & Uncle Pete” or “Aunt Minnie and Cousin Nix”. It was unexpected when I realized those names were of course in relation to my grandmother, so that Aunt Ida was in fact my great-great-aunt. They had always seemed current relatives just out of view. It gave me an appreciation for the love my grandmother had for her family and its history. I had never really given it a thought before- her people were simply my people regardless of when they lived

On Saturday’s as a child I was almost always collected by my father’s unmarried sister as they hurried home from beauty shop appointments. Those days were spent with extended family giving me my heart’s desire, with trips to parks or zoos or museums, wherever I wanted to go. They would deliver me to my parents home in the evening, a tired and excited and happy boy. In summers they took me on vacation trips to caverns and historic sites until we hurried home a few weeks before school would start, often in a car loaded with souvenirs and memories.

What children do not know naturally is to judge based on the prejudices of society or personal politics. They take at face value the affection and pleasant times they experience and don’t question why or how or who.

I took for granted that the happiest and youngest of my father’s sisters, who carried me around on Saturdays and took me on those trips, was always accompanied by her friend Wilma wherever we went. They had known each other for decades and to everyone Wilma was simply a part of the family. Very young I used to laugh when waiters in restaurants always called Wilma “Sir”, not thinking about her black pleated pants or starched dress shirts. She never carried a purse, but a wallet like my father’s, that always seemed to have just enough cash to do whatever we wanted. I never thought it odd that on the rare Saturdays when I got to spend the night at The Aunt’s home that Wilma didn’t stay in the guest room but always with Aunt Liz, sleeping in white tank tops and boxer shorts. I took it at face value that all was as it should have been and we all loved each other as members of the same family.

It never occurred to me until Aunt Liz’s funeral my first year of college; the first occasion that I ever saw Wilma in a skirt. Suddenly the light came on to me and I marveled that their relationship had always been hidden in plain site. That day Wilma said the most amazing thing to me. As we left the graveside she pulled me aside and said, “Don’t ever let them make you unhappy, always follow your heart.” It was amazing to suddenly know what I had in front of me and didn’t see until it was gone.

Afterwards I sometimes wondered, would my mother’s mother have recognized or understood Aunt Liz and Wilma? Would she have approved or even seen what was there? Probably not, but those kinds of facts did not enter her country view of the world. It was not something that she could have even seen or comprehended, and certainly never would have discussed. It didn’t make her any less of an accepting person, she only knew what her life experience had shown her. For my grandmother, and for Aunt Liz and Wilma, all was as it should have been within their own worlds.

What I knew as a child was that I had a family that loved and cherished me, in town and country, at all times. That unconditional love gave me the ability to dream and become whatever I wanted to be, for which I owe them all a debt of gratitude forever.

Wilma,  Aunt Liz, and One Happy Boy