Foerster Family Portrait, 1919

Tomorrow I fly to Omaha, Nebraska for my cousin Aaron's wedding. Every single member of my mother's family will be there, so it will be an unprecedented family reunion of three generations with lots of new babies in the family to meet. I was looking back over family photographs and remembered this poem I'd written about my maternal grandmother's family. How I wish my grandparents Chuck and Dolores could be there!

Foerster Family Portrait, 1919

Grandmother, you are four, maybe,

the darling baby in a family of –

count them—eleven children,

plus who knows how many

additional miscarriages

or young deaths your clear-eyed

mother may have suffered quietly;

her German fortitude betraying

no struggles, she is all serene

and proud with her hearty brood.

Here, one of your sisters wears the

habit of Catholic nuns, in a few years

another sister would too.

In the back row: Hilda, Ella, Leo,

Sister Luke, Otto, Bruno, Laura

(later Sister Marcella) and Julia.

In the front row: Rudy, your father Frank

then you, little pixie, front and center,

your mother Mary, then Genevieve.

Grandmother, was it from your mother

or father’s line that you inherited

your wry sense of humor? Which sister

taught you to sew? Did your mother

make pickles with you each summer?

Which of these siblings was the prankster,

which the athlete, which the artist, which

one shy? What did your father like to do

in the evenings? Was your home filled

with music, baseball, stories round the fire?

Did your mother play cards like you?

How did you celebrate birthdays?

What did you do for the 4^th of July?

I study the faces of your family - 

my family –

I hear the click of the camera,

the whoosh of the flash bulb.

A momentary pause

then in the next instant, I hear

you all jostling, laughing, 

heading off to lunch

into each individual and

infinitely detailed life.