First Cousins

The Hamers. From left clockwise: Kenny,
Brian, Stephen, Peter, Danny, Kevin and Tim.

My cousin Danny Hamer, blonde and sweet-faced, dies suddenly when he's barely 16.

Our giant of a father sobs like a baby at the funeral. At the time Mom is terminally ill, and it seems to us that the world is ending. We cannot absorb the idea that our sweet Danny, who loves high school swimming and shares a paper route with his brothers, is gone. 

Although we believe his death is a tragic fluke, later we will discover that Danny has lost his life to an adrenal gland tumor which wreaks havoc on his body. It is not a fluke, however. Instead, it's the result of a rogue gene that meanders along our family tree attacking several second cousins, Danny's brother, my own son and brother, and my brother's son. The mother of our second cousins, Suzy Shields, makes the connection nearly 20 years after Danny's death when her own son becomes ill. Because of her family research and medicine's advanced treatments, the rest of us with the deadly gene are spared. We owe our lives to Suzy. And to Danny. 

Danny, 1977. His last school pic.

That hardly makes us feel better about Danny. He should be with us. Like many of his Hamer brothers, Danny would have grandchildren now and tell stories about growing up in a family of seven male siblings. Instead, Danny will remain our sweet blonde boy. Somehow, my own nine brothers and sisters and I will always associate Danny's death with Mom's death just a year later. Danny will forever be just 16-years-old, and Mom will always be the beauty she was in her 40's. 

I am thinking of all these things at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs as I attend the burial of my Uncle Steve - the father of my seven cousins. On this hot July morning, my husband John and son Kenny and I squint into the sun as Uncle Steve is lowered into the ground. A retired Air Force colonel who served 30 years, Uncle Steve is buried with military honors. My six cousins stand shoulder to shoulder in front of me like a brigade of handsome soldiers, and beside me their sweet wives weep. Uncle Steve is buried in the same plot as Danny and Aunt Patty. It's a comfort to think of them together, but it's also the end of an era. All our parents, as well as our only uncle - the loving and eccentric Uncle Carl - are gone. 

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve with sons
from left: Kevin, Tim, Ken, Stephen,
Pete and Brian

Without the generation before us to organize family gatherings, I fear we will never see each other. During Uncle Steve's Air Force career, our Hamer cousins lived all over the country and even in England for a time. We didn't see them often, but when the Browns and the Hamers united under one roof, I always sensed the "family" part of us. Even now, I observe that my cousins Tim and Stephen have hair just like my brothers Joe and Tom. The Hamer boys and the Brown boys all have the same shaped heads. Kevin and my brother Mick share the same mischievious glint in their eyes, and my cousin Peter might as well be my little brother Tom's identical twin. 

It's not just that, though. The Hamers were reared by their mother - my dad's sister. Aunt Patty raised seven boys all by herself when Uncle Steve was serving two tours of duty in VietNam. She was tough, opinionated, demanding and loving. Just like Dad. She and Dad even had the same piercing blue eyes. After Dad died, my siblings and I loved to look at Aunt Patty's eyes just to feel Dad gazing right back at us. Those blue eyes, however, could be fierce when we were in trouble.  Even though his dad was a seasoned military colonel, my oldest cousin Tim makes a confession. 

Suzy Shields, our savior and
health advisor, with Uncle Steve

"I was far more afraid of my mother," he laughs.

In this way we are part of the same fabric. Aunt Patty and Dad raised all of us to revere faith and family. Loyalty was paramount. For the rest of our lives, we understood that if a family member needed help, you dropped everything and took care of each other. And another thing - you absolutely went to Sunday Mass.

If one of us was suffering from a stomach ache on Sunday morning, Dad preached us a sermon. "Mind over matter! You think Jesus cried over a little stomach ache when he was dying on the cross for you?" 

Just when you'd never felt so bad in your life, Dad made you feel a little worse. That was because suffering was to be embraced according to Dad and Aunt Patty. You toughed it out, behaved yourself and acted like the good Catholic you were.

Even now as I approach 70 years, I am reluctant to skip Mass. I have no more children at home who require a good role model. Why not? Then I imagine meeting Dad and Aunt Patty at the Pearly Gates. They stand side by side regarding me with those bright blue eyes.

"What happened to church?" Aunt Patty inquires in that strong Eastern accent, her eyebrow arched.

My cousins' wives from left: Jen, Carol,
Sharon, Sherry and Noelia

Dad merely shakes his head. I am crushed by his disappointment.

Tim remembers the winter visit the Hamers all made to our house in their big green van. On their way home from Nebraska all the way across the country, the heating element gave out. The only heat in the vehicle came from the floor just above the transmission. Seven boys took turns lying stomach down on the warm part of the floor.

"You've had your 15 minutes, Brian!" Aunt Patty would bark from the front seat. "It's Kenny's turn!"  

There was no such thing as whining or fighting over it. You simply sucked it up. 

We laugh as we remember, but we're also grateful. None of my siblings and I will ever forget the way Aunt Patty traveled numerous times from Colorado Springs to Grand Island when Mom was dying. She cleaned our badly neglected house, made dozens of meals to store in the freezer, and comforted us. I didn't appreciate until I was much older that Danny had just died. Uncle Steve and our six cousins needed her as much as we did. Kenny, her youngest, was only ten. I know her big heart must have been sorely divided, but she was intent on taking care of her 16 kids. We will never forget her kindness.

Cindy, Ken's wife, with Uncle Steve

At Uncle Steve's service, we share these stories and updates of our own families. It is remarkable to be in a room full of Hamer kids and grandkids and Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve's great grandkids. So many in these younger generations boast a splendid abundance of Uncle Steve's red hair and good looks. I'm sad not to know them better. It's impossible, though, when we all live so far away from each other. I am especially sad not to be able to spend time with my cousins' wives. Those Hamer boys married good ones. Sherry, Carol, Sharon, Noelia, Jen and Cindy. I am struck by their beauty and kindness and humor. No wonder Uncle Steve and Aunt Patty loved them so much. Grief is no stranger to these girls, either.

In fact, my cousin Stephen and his beautiful wife Carol are enveloped by more grief today. Their daughter Kristin's husband, who's been in Hospice, has died only the night before. Yet, with characteristic family courage, young Kristin is attending her grandfather's funeral with her four-year-old daughter.

"I'm so sorry, Kristin," I embrace the slender, red-haired girl. "I can't believe you're here today!"

She sighs. "I want to be here," she says. "Where else would I be?"

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve with the grands

I see her later at a table with her striking red-haired siblings. One of her brothers is in military uniform, like his grandfather before him. I hardly know these children, but I suddenly realize I like them very much. They are my family.

Pete's lovely wife Jen is the talented family photographer. She snaps photo after photo and at last sits to visit. Jen is mourning, too - not only for Uncle Steve but for her own dad who's struggling with health issues. Soon, though, she shows me a video on her phone. It's her daughter Kaitlin's announcement that a baby is coming. In the video, Jen whoops with delight and throws her napkin into the air while my cousin Pete beams with surprise and joy.

Jen and I smile in mutual understanding. Even in death, there is life. Our parents leave us, but the great Hamer family continues to grow and thrive.

When we at last hug goodbye, I tell my cousins we have to commit to a reunion. 

"It's what your mom wanted. We can't just be together at funerals!"

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve

They agree, and we immediately propose that we Eastern and Midwestern cousins meet in the middle - say the Ozarks. But I know it is unlikely that we will manage to gather more than a hundred people in one place. Life is too complicated, and our young people are busy.

Still, I want more - more time to tell stories about Uncle Carl and his mega-boxes of Christmas gifts. More time to spend with my six cousins and their wives. More time to learn about their work and their interests and the books they read. Do they ever feel like skipping Mass on Sunday?

That's what makes me sad. We share so much - a legacy of family and history and a terrible rogue gene that makes us distinctly different from everybody else we know in the whole world. Still, even that gene belongs to us and to us alone. 

Surely, we will meet again. The trouble is, we're all getting older. At least I am. At the rate we're going, we only see each other once every five years. How many opportunities are left to us? 

 Uncle Steve's burial with military honors

In that case, I'll look forward to Heaven. Sweet Danny will be there. And Mom and Dad. Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve and wonderful Uncle Carl are waiting for us. We'll have all the time in the world to catch up and tell stories and laugh. 

And, by God, Aunt Patty will make sure we don't skip Mass.