September 7, 2008

If you think you're enlightened, go home for the holidays

I Arrived in Boston just in time for the pre-reunion reunion: that is a reunion of the various, disparate factions of my family who are related through an intertwined series of marriages, divorces and liaisons. Follow this, if you can. First, my father Ed (Adams) married my mother Marjorie (Tolstrup). They had 2 daughters - me and my sister Suzi. My father's sister (Laura) married my mother's brother (David). They had 3 sons, David, Mark and Jim. David and Laura were friends with Carl and Barbara Goodwin, who had 2 sons, Peter and Paul. So far, so good.

Then Carl and Laura fell in love. They divorced their spouses, married each other, and had 2 more sons - Adam and Matthew. Sometime later, David and Barbara married and their families merged: David, Mark, Jim, Peter and Paul were raised together in a house on Nobel St in Malden Massachusetts that originally belonged to my grandmother and grandfather Tolstrup.

So, the official Adams family reunion included David, Mark, Jim, Adam and Matt, but not Peter and Paul. This despite the fact that David, Mark, Jim Peter and Paul were all raised together as brothers. Complicating matters is the fact that, though they were not raised with any of their half-brothers, Adam and Matt are related to Dave, Mark and Jim through their mother and to Peter and Paul through their father. Because there is no blood tie, Peter and Paul were not invited to the Adams family reunion and everybody but them seemed a bit disgruntled about it.
The solution manifested itself as the pre-reunion reunion where ALL of the brothers, their wives and children (and in one very special case grandchild), David & Barbara were present. I arrived out of a month's worth of ecstatic adventures and was welcomed into the fold as a kind of prodigal daughter. It was really quite wonderful. These people are my people.

3 comments:

Jim Tolstrup said...

Just wanted to clarify one point and that is that Carl and Laura divorced their spouses and married each other. "Ran off together" and "during their time together" makes it sound like Adam and Matt are born of un-married parents which of course they are not.

Katie and Emir said...

Well that is complicated but I think it demonstrates that birds of a feather flock together...which reminds me, how are the crows? Murderous? Stoned? Still following you around?

SA Kilpatrick (Sandra Adams) said...

Point well taken, Jim and I apologise. I've also corrected the entry to reflect the reality.