THANKING RAYMPIN

“Salute Herodian my kinsman...” (from Romans 16:11)

A “kinsman” is a relative.  On Saturday, my wife and I are going to the wedding of a relative of mine.  Well, since she’s a female, I guess I should say of a “kins    WOMAN” of mine.  I don’t know Erica well.  In my life I’ve probably seen her half a dozen times.  I suppose if you added each time up, it might come to three or four or even five hours.  So why am I going to Erica’s wedding?

Erica is the daughter of my cousin Janet.  Janet is the daughter of my father’s older brother, Raymond.  On my mother’s side, I have only a few relatives in all the world.  I could probably easily fit all my relatives on my mother’s side inside my residence for a social time.  On my FATHER’S side, I have many, many relatives!  If we ALL got together at the same time, well I guess we’d need a good sized function hall!  My mom had only one sibling.  My father was the youngest of eight children.  One died in childhood- his sister Irene.  She died at age 7 several years before he was born.  Besides Irene (the one who died in childhood) there were four girls and three boys.  Dad’s parents were immigrants from the farming country just outside Montreal, Quebec.  Their first language was French, and they moved across the border to New England over a hundred years ago.  (If Michael Graham is reading this, yes, they did everything legally!)  When my father was born in 1922 his brother Raymond was nearly 16.  Dad’s parents were in their middle forties when he was born.

By the time I was born, Dad’s father had been dead for eight years, and Dad’s mother was severely afflicted with dementia and would die when I was just a toddler.  Today, I realize that Dad’s eldest brother Raymond and his wife Milly really acted in the role of paternal grandparents for my brother, my sister, and me.
Uncle Raymond and Aunt Milly and their two kids, Donnie and Janet, moved to Canton in 1953.  THAT’S the reason my father bought a lot in Canton and moved us there to a new house in 1958.  Most of my cousins were “cool” ‘50s and ‘60s teenagers (like “Happy Days”!) when I was just a little kid.  Janet used to baby-sit us. and we enjoyed having her as a sitter, and Uncle Raymond and Aunt Milly came overt to visit almost every Sunday night.  

As the movie, “The Rain Man”, shows, it’s very difficult for a little kid to pronounce “Raymond”.  When my sister Dianne was around 3 she used to call Uncle Raymond, “Uncle Raympin”!  Uncle Raymond was “as bald as a billiard ball” as they say.  I guess he began losing his hair around age 21 and was completely bald at 30.  Aunt Milly was one of the most energetic and TALKATIVE people I’ve ever known.  As talkative as Aunt Milly was, Uncle Raymond was a FABULOUS storyteller.  Sunday night after Sunday night, we’d be hanging on every word as he told the most riveting stories.  Uncle Raymond worked as a gas company repair man. There were funny stories about things that happened on repair calls.  Then, there were funny stories about all the pranks he pulled as a kid.  There was frankly a lot of “bathroom humor” which little children find especially funny.   

Uncle Raymond and Aunt Milly came to virtually all of our school events, again, essentially in the role of grandparents.  I still remember the day they took the three of us kids to the U.S.S. Massachusetts in August of 1966.   Aunt Milly later complained to my mother that we didn’t know how to act in a restaurant.  Honestly, we DIDN’T.  We almost never went to restaurants!

In 1971 Uncle Raymond was diagnosed with cancer.  I was a Senior in high school and I was DEVASTATED.  He died in March of 1972.  My ONLY absence from school in my Senior year was attending Uncle Raymond’s funeral.  Aunt Milly was so grief-stricken with Uncle Raymond’s death that she eagerly became a “Jehovah’s Witness” when they came to her door and promised the opportunity to see Raymond again.  Ironically, I officiated at Aunt Milly’s funeral in December of 2000, just four months after my mother’s death.  

Yes, I know, that’s a LOT of family history, and I’m sorry if it was like watching somebody’s home movies for you!  But back to Erica’s wedding.  She is TRULY Raymond and Milly’s grandchild.  I don’t know her very well at all.  But I guess the biggest reason I’m going to her wedding is I’m thanking “Raympin”!