I have often wondered why one side of my family had such special bonds and love with each other while the other did not. I can’t explain why one member of a family will develop a fondness or closeness to another member of the family and not to all. Maybe it is an age thing, circumstances, or simply surviving.
I know there was a special bond between my mom and my grandma. You might ask how I know this—my mom told me often. Mom talked a lot about the last days she spent with her mother, and the answer mom gave grandma the day the last two babies were born. There were already 10 children in the family and grandma asked mom what are we going to do now? Mom told her mother that they would take care of the babies.
It wasn’t that grandma didn’t love her other children, but I think that mom, being the second oldest, had shown grandma the role she had taken in helping with the siblings. With grandma’s death mom transferred that bond to granddad, and along with her oldest sister, the three raised the babies. A new bond was formed between the two older sisters and the two baby sisters. This bond between these babies and their young substitute mothers would continue the rest of their lives.
There was also a bond between my granddad and my daddy. Maybe it was because they worked together on the road project that was being built between Moyers and Route 220—now Moyers Gap Road. Maybe it was because after mom married my daddy, they would visit granddad and the younger siblings each week to see that they were alright. Granddad also had a special bond with my Uncle Vernon, quite like the one with my dad. There was just something different in the relationship granddad had with these two sons-in-law and the other seven sons-in-law.
My mom and Aunt Cleo were very close, and Aunt Cleo said that me and my sister are her oldest daughters, and she was like a second mom to us. The bond mom had with grandma wasn’t a long one and it’s as if she assured grandma that she would take care of granddad, and she did until he passed away. The Smith side of my family has always been a close-knit family—there for each other no matter what.
There were bonds in the Rexrode side of my family but nothing like the Smiths. My grandma Rexrode died at age 30, leaving granddad to raise their four children. He had the help of his mother. Daddy never talked about his family. I did not know that I was granddad Rexrode’s first grandchild and a part of his last year of life.
I don’t recall a lot about daddy’s family until they were adults and had started their own lives. Uncle Paul was shy and never left home—Aunt Virginia and Aunt Ruth both moved on. I don’t know what happened, but Aunt Ruth never did like my daddy and that continued pretty much their adult lives. Daddy took care of Paul just like he did his own children, and that was their special bond. There was no family bond here like in mom’s family.
I think about the two families where the father was left to raise the children and how differently the family relationships turned out. I will one day have the answers!
Family bonds are true treasures but so are the bonds between friends. A true friend is a gift to be cherished.
My one sister and I have a bond that is different from our relationships with our brother and baby sister. We have been called the twins that weren’t born as twins. This is due in part to our being born 11 months apart, our physical size and resemblance as young girls, and our mannerisms. We were the only playmates that we really had until we started school. We both had the same friends at school, after we married and started our own families, and now as both widows and senior ladies. Some things are meant to last.
It’s sad to see members of a family not get along with one another, drift apart and never speak again. God didn’t create families to live this way.
LOVE—the greatest gift one can give and receive.
Violet R. Eye
