Family

This morning the phone rang as I sat groggily nursing my first cup of coffee. Expecting it to be a student, I grimaced when my husband said, "Dr. Robideaux? Which one? Sharon?"

He grinned wickedly as he handed me the phone. Figuring to punish him later, I said hello to the caller.

"Dr. Robideaux? I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time?" said a male voice.

Rather cooly, I replied, "That depends on who you are."

"Oh, I'm just a fella by the name of Sherman Cater," he told me.

"Uncle Sherman!"

In case I haven't mentioned it, my mother's family is--hmm, what word should I use? Odd? Yes, but all families are odd. Uncle Sherman is my mother's brother. There were three sons and four daughters in the family. My mother was the oldest daughter; this uncle is the middle son. The other two sons have died. Uncle Bill (William Joseph Cater, Jr.) died within the past five years, and Bobo (Jimmy Dale Cater) died within the past year of pancreatic cancer. Bobo was younger than I was, and we grew up close, so of course, it was hard on me. Still, Uncle Sherman was the one I was closest to in some ways, probably because (like me) he has always lived pretty far from his parents and siblings. For most of his adult life, he lived in California with Denny, his first wife, and their six children. I spent the summer of 1969 (song title there) living with them and taking care of the kids while he and Denny worked. We'd stay up half the night arguing about all the philosophical issues that plague the minds of middle-aged men and teenaged girls. Always pretty argumentative myself, I found my match in my uncle.

It was Sherman who introduced me to a brave new concept: Atheists didn't have horns. They walked among us. They married and had children. I already was full of doubts about this creature called "God," and in arguing with Sherman, I turned those doubts into certainties. If he could deny the existence of God and remain unstruck by lightning, then I could, too. [I must admit, though, after leaving his home and going to college, where I was once again surrounded by believers--and no one can be more cruel to a teenage girl than a pack of other teenage girls--I kept my ideas pretty much to myself.]

Years passed. Denny died of bone cancer. Uncle Sherman moved to the Philippines, where he married one woman, annulled that marriage, married another, had children, and, apparently, finally returned to the United States with this wife and two children. They are living in Louisiana again, a state my uncle had left as a teenager and only rarely returned to visit.

We talked for nearly two hours. He's still got his eccentricities and obsessions, so we don't agree on everything. (This was the man who introduced me to the idea that Civil Rights for all people was the only moral way to exist. Yet he really demonized Barrack Obama--seeing in him a lying, deceitful, horrible person. I don't agree, and I don't know why my uncle feels that way. I have had to put that idea where Mr. Obama has had to put his minister's ideas.) Changing the conversation, we shared some family history. He's done a lot of geneology work. And of course, we promised to keep in touch.

I've figured out the word to use. Family. As much as I might have had my differences with my relatives in the past, I've learned (re-learned?) through the geneology search that each of us is but one person, one tiny spot of uniqueness, in a grouping that is far more important than our individual selves. Family. Accept who they are, even when it hurts. I'm trying. Too many of them have died in the last few years, and the next few years will be full of other funerals since we are all getting older. (Uncle Sherman is 71 now.) One day someone will be doing family research, and they will fill in one of the boxes on their family tree with my name. Niece of Sherman Cater. That's important to me. I won't let that go. Dr. S.