Gathering of the Clans...

I never stood a chance with my mother-in-law. Put simply, she did not like women. She was a mother of men, and revelled in her role of matriarch. No female competition. Until later. She did, however, place importance on family. But more specifically, family gatherings. The bigger the better. Regardless of how much their size would daunt my Dearest husband for whom they would be absolute hell.

However, time passes. We are now the family elders. And yesterday we sat seven around a dining table, brothers and sisters from two branches of Dearest's family. Convivial eating, drinking and writing names on the backs of curling and ancient family photographs. Putting heads together over the identities of some, and making educated guesses as to others. Realising with poignancy that there is no one left to ask. And being mindful that whilst we still have it in us to do so, we should all be putting the names on the backs of photographs, no matter how obvious it appears to us right now. Or else, in fifty years time, another few generations  down the line, will be left scratching their heads.

It would be overly sentimental to think of Dearest's mother looking down on this modest gathering, but if she had been, she would have been spitting feathers at missing out.