This past weekend my cousin Diana Beth came up with a great activity at our biennial family reunion/Sportsfest. Our McCleskey family does not get together just to eat; we compete.
Diana's instructions for the game were simple enough: take a tomato, a lemon, a piece of bread, a toothpick, a Starburst candy, and a lifesaver and create something that tells a story.
Oddly enough, no one even considered asking me to represent our group (Team Clifton so named for my mother's brother). I understood why and was certainly not offended and most certainly relieved. The other team members were all over 50, so we opted to choose Chloe, the youngest McCleskey in attendance. However, she wanted Turk, my cousin and fellow team member, to assist.
Turk and Chloe, who have maybe been in the same room twice or three times in their lifetimes, made the most of the 10-minutes allotted. The Virginia Military Institute history professor listened intently to this eight-year-old from Seattle. Chloe knew what she wanted to do with that menagerie of food items, but she wanted Turk by her side providing narration for the creation.
The end result was a delightful story that had some family members meeting for gin and tonics (Turk's input) under a lemon parasol (Chloe's food sculpture).
As it turned out, my cousin Pierce won the competition for Team Eula (my mom's sister). It was a fair decision: Pierce is a chef/caterer. The guy could take sawdust, squid, and mayonnaise and prepare something that would look edible even if it weren't.
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This Friday night event made me appreciate the imagery that is used to represent ancestry and lineage: the family tree.
It is mistaken to think that family trees only "grow" when a new child is born. Branches are added whenever precious moments occur, and Turk and Chloe's partnership was one such moment. These third cousins who hardly know each other were out on a limb together. All they have in common is the trunk of that tree, but what a rooted and solid foundation it is.
Like any family, we have endured the elements that have the ability to nourish and those that can destroy.
As the seasons go, our family tree has been verdant and lush, experiencing the joys that come with the celebrations of marriages, births, graduations, and job successes.
But no family is immune to the bitter blasts of cold. Trials and struggles, whether self-inflicted or life-inflicted, have not only stripped the limbs from time to time but have sadly broken them on occasion. Trees do not always produce and provide shade; sometimes the branches' silhouette is hauntingly bare.
Watching Turk and Chloe at Sportsfest VIII was pure nourishment. The McCleskey Family tree trunk is holding steady, and it never hurts to have a drink of family.
Yes, the tree symbol is clearly appropriate: one trunk but many branches going off in all directions make for a spectacular sight. When winter comes, the gnarled but still connected limbs are exposed. When spring arrives, the blossoms and eventual leaves shape the tree as one.
No matter a family's size, its members can always make room to grow. One of the best ways to do that is to follow Turk and Chloe's lead: overlook the differences in years or in geography or even in ideology; sometimes even try embracing those differences.
Doing so might just help our roots grow deeper.
Doing so might just help our roots grow deeper.
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