Generations shift at family reunions

Family reunions are more than periodic opportunities to reunite with relatives you seldom see or barely know. Family reunions are also lessons in the steady advance of time. These events reveal truths we are reluctant to recognize, that we age into new roles without acknowledgement or intention. We become not only our parents but also our grandparents and great-grandparents.

In the past two months, I've attended reunions of my mother's and my father's families. My mother's family, comprising six siblings, was especially close-knit, it seemed to a youthful me. The five sisters and one brother, with all their children (a total of 13 grandchildren for my grandparents) gathered every Sunday afternoon at the home my grandfather built on a small farm after he retired from the cotton mill. While the adults sat and talked, my cousins and I had free run of the farm with its fields, pond and barn. At this year's reunion, only eight of the 13 cousins were still living, and not all of them attended the reunion.

My father's family seemed less adhered. The ten siblings scattered farther away from the mill village where all were raised. Some sought better jobs or followed ambitions or circumstance to distant places. One son, the youngest, never returned from World War II, though his brothers survived.

Now, when families gather, the remnants of my father's family seem closer and more eager to reunite. When I look around at either reunion, I see my contemporaries, my first cousins, and their children and grandchildren and realize that I am now where my grandparents were in my youth — elderly, a little insecure, and overjoyed, filled with gratitude, to see the children of our children. The old pictures we pass around show our parents in middle age or later, and we take pictures of our generation, at that same vulnerable age, distinguished from our parents primarily by this year's color photography, which contrasts with the black-and-white light and shadows of the old pictures. The faces are not so different. We, who once tugged on the pants and skirts of parents, now look down at the toddlers who have assumed our earlier roles, impatiently tugging for attention.

We are constantly teetering on that instability of being the playful kid, the cocky teenager, the ambitious, confident young adult, while also being the elderly, time-limited, slower, fading people we saw our parents become. Can we possibly be the same person? We don't recognize the bell curve of life until we are plummeting on the downward side, unable to stop it or slow it down.

A Blessing to Four Generations

A huge part of this family's history is up for sale. I was asked to write a short history of the house, as recommended by the Realtor, who said buyers may want to get an understanding of the home's emotional ties. My brief, one-page history is below.

The Lake House:  a blessing to four generations

            Four generations of this family owe a great debt to M.P. “Pat” Witherington, a World War II Navy officer and then a CPA in Statesville, who selected a waterfront lot off Morrison Farm Road in 1964 before Lake Norman was filled. He stood at the edge of the unpaved and unnamed road and knew it was the perfect spot with one of the finest views of any place on the north end of the new lake. Pat, who grew up near waterways in eastern North Carolina, chose a lot at the end of a protected cove with a miles-long view of the lake. At first, his family of his wife, Harriett, and four children enjoyed the water and the view on weekend adventures involving tents, a picnic table and lots of relatives and friends. Pat and Harriett loved it so much, they decided to sell their home in Statesville and build a new home at the lake.

            The house was completed in 1967, and the family moved to the lake permanently. Each teenager had her own bedroom, and all the children grew up on the water, boating, swimming, water skiing and watching new homes appear as lake living grew more popular. Sometimes, Pat would get home from a long day at the office and immediately take a quick swim off the dock.

            In 1972, by-then-widowed Pat remarried, and he moved to his new bride’s home in Statesville. For the now mostly grown children, The Lake House, as it had come to be known, would always be home. Pat kept the Lake House as a gathering spot for his children, their spouses and their children and grandchildren. Second generation families spent their vacations and special weekends at The Lake House. Each new generation fell in love with the house and the water and the heritage and history the house represented.

            The extended family continued to gather at The Lake House over the decades for Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduation celebrations, weddings, childbirths and other special occasions. The original siblings, scattered by careers, would all gather at the lake with their children, which forced some crowded sleeping arrangements but resulted in immutable memories. The third-generation cousins would form a Cousins Club and conspire to play tricks on their parents or produce talent shows for them, and those precious moments would return two decades later, when the fourth-generation children formed the same group dynamics during vacations at The Lake House.

            Each generation has found solace at The Lake House. During times of discord or crisis, they could escape to the lake to sit on the porch and look out across the water. Whether the lake sparkled with sunlight or roiled with an approaching rainstorm inching its way toward the cove, the second-floor porch was the spot to see nature’s beauty and to feel all tensions and worries drain away. If the weather was too cold for porch sitting, the living room fireplace could provide nearly as effective emotional healing.

            When Pat died in 2010, he left The Lake House to his children, who cherished it as the greatest bequest they could ever receive, and they and their children and grandchildren continued to enjoy the lake. Sadly, the expense of maintaining the house and the distance from their primary homes made keeping the house indefinitely an impossible dream. The calming, relaxing, ideal spot will have to bless another family.