Last week’s mail brought a letter from my sister Mary full of pictures of her grandchildren—Madeline, Eric, Kathryn, and the newest addition, Kayla Mary, born just a few weeks ago. I linger over a photo of my sister’s daughters, my nieces Natalie and Leah, and bask in a flood of memories.

I remember when Natalie was born, a big baby with dark hair and olive skin who arrived in the dead of winter in upstate New York. I can still see her tucked into her sweet sleeper, dozing with her bottom straight up in the air during her first visit to my parents’ house on Long Island a month or two after she was born. My mother had been unable to be with my sister during the difficult birth and recovery because she was caring for my grandmother, Germaine. My sister chose Germaine as Natalie’s middle name, tying the generations of the family together, a tradition many of us have continued in naming our babies.

The youngest in a big family, I became an aunt when I was only 10 years old, and I relished my role. I loved holding the babies, playing with the toddlers, and taking the preschoolers on walks. In some ways, my nieces and nephews were more like younger brothers and sisters.

I actually rode the school bus with my oldest niece Granola Grrrl. Her dad, my oldest brother, had built a house on the farm my parents had settled on in rural Virginia. I was a sophomore in high school when Granola Grrrl started kindergarten. We were the first ones to get on the bus and rode it for an hour while it snaked through the scenic back roads to school. Despite the noise and the winding, bumpy ride on paved and dirt roads, I always fell asleep on the ride home in the afternoon. Little Granola Grrrl, her red hair in two crooked braids, would give me a gentle tap on the shoulder to let me know when it was time to get off.

When I was a sophomore in college, my oldest sister and godmother Louise, died of a rare form of cancer. She was only 33. At the funeral, most of my siblings were all sitting with their spouses and children. E-Man and I weren’t married, and he was in the Army stationed in Oklahoma. He didn’t make it to the funeral in New Jersey. Granola Grrrl, only 10 years old, left her seat with her family and moved back a few pews in the church to sit with me. She held my hand and silently handed me Kleenex during the funeral.

Granola Grrrl and I have always had a special relationship. I’m her godmother and she became godmother to my son, Mr. A, when he was born. When he was less than a year old, I was Granola Grrrl’s maid of honor. In an amazing turn of events, Granola Grrrl and I later became pregnant within weeks of each other and e-mailed constantly while waiting for the arrival of her twin sons and my daughter, E-Grrrl (who was named after my mom and sister)

When E-Grrrl was 4, she was a flower girl in my niece Leah’s wedding. E-Grrrl loved getting to know her grown cousins Leah and Natalie better and hanging out with her teenage cousin Kim—all glamorous “big girls” to wide-eyed little E.

And now Kim is set to begin her journalism career and two of the other “big girls” are beautiful moms to the next generation of round-faced, rose-cheeked babies and toddlers. 

I have five brothers and sisters, ten nieces and nephews, and eleven great nieces and nephews. I’ve met less than half of the members of this youngest generation in my family. Even before we moved to Belgium, we were so spread out across the U.S. that it was rare to get together with family members. E-Grrrl and Mr. A don’t even realize how big our family is, though they make periodic attempts to connect with their young cousins by mail and thoroughly enjoy those times they’ve shared together with relatives.

They wear their older cousins hand-me-downs and then when the clothes are outgrown, we box them up and share them with the younger ones. I joke that in our family, the ties that bind are the yarn and the thread in the hand-me-down clothes. We have our own version of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, including photos of our kids at key moments wearing the same dress, jacket, or t-shirt. Those clothes have gone from New York to Virginia to Belgium to Texas to Michigan. 

When I was choosing what to bring to Belgium, I agonized over what to do with our family photos. I wanted to have them with me but I was terrified of shipping them overseas, consumed with the thought of them getting lost or damaged during the two months they would be in transit. So I left nearly all of them behind, traveling to Belgium with a few duplicate photos of E-Grrrl and Mr. A in my suitcase and a small framed photo of my mother in my purse.

I’ve missed my photos, and more than that, I regret that I never considered how much my children need the photos to visualize and remember far away family and friends.

Today I pulled out all the photos I do have, ones that have been sent to us by friends and family since we’ve moved here. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than creating a photo collage on the refrigerator?

After all, home is where your heart is—and where loved ones gather in the kitchen.

April 30, 2006