Family time

When you have only one sibling, and you aren’t on speaking terms with said sibling, it’s great to compensate with quality time with your cousins. Last night, I had dinner with the DC cousins, Joanne Casey, her sister Candy, and her brothers Tom and Riley. Interesting folk all. Very different from each other, yet a very cohesive bunch. Then we went to Ocean City to a Casey family event organised by the Margate New Jersey Caseys (Noel, Beth, Cate and Bill). The funeral service tomorrow is for their dad, my Uncle Bill.

I enjoyed catching up with all these cousins, learning about their kids and grandkids and vacations, etc. They appreciated me traveling so far for the funeral. I tried to tell them how much Uncle Bill meant to me. He was at the centre of many happy memories from my childhood--idyllic summers spent at the Jersey shore on the beach, at the sub shop, under the boardwalk, at the ice cream shop, on the front porch of his cedar shingle house, where his wife would serve pigs in a blanket and the kids would listen to the adults reminisce about their idyllic childhoods. On weekend mornings, Uncle Bill would turn out endless piles of silver dollar pancakes for everyone. In the evenings, he mixed bloody Mary’s and whiskey sours for the adults. Always with a story and a chuckle. He was one of those adults who asked you a question and made you feel like he was genuinely interested in your answer, despite you being a child.

At today’s funeral, each of his children talked about what made him so wonderful. He served for decades on the board of a home for handicapped children; he played many roles in the church where we sat; he was an active supporter of his kids' many sporting activities; he put his family first at all times; he was a great friend to many people in Margate; he was a great host and barman; he was a storyteller par excellence; he was an institution. You don’t just feel like a person has died but like a way of being a husband, friend, and father has disappeared. Partly because of who he was and partly because of the times he lived in.

At the luncheon after the service, I talked to yet more cousins. I think 16 of the 40 cousins were there, including myself and my sister. The California and Indiana cousins were missing, as were the Main Line Philadelphia cousins who don’t get on with the New Jersey cousins. You can’t have a big family (there were 10 Casey siblings) without bad blood somewhere.

I headed back to Philly with Phil and Laura McMunigal, my Aunt Rosemary’s oldest son and his wife. They very kindly let me crash for a night in their lovely Rittenhouse Square apartment.

I hope for Uncle Bill’s sake that the completeness of his love for his wife and daughter, both of whom predeceased him, means his soul is reunited with theirs. It seems a bit fantastical, but if there are rewards for a life well lived, why not?

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