Reuniting with Family

I spent five days back in Western Massachusetts for the Cherry Hill Seminary Summer Intensive, followed by a meeting of most of the Administrative Committee. Upon my mother's recent death, I had phoned several relatives who don't have email. One was my cousin Blake S. I knew he lived in Maine and found a phone number for a Blake S. in Maine, so I called it. Blake himself answered. We talked for a long time, and when he learned I'd be coming to New England the weekend following Mother's memorial, he said he wanted to drive down to visit me if I could carve out a few hours.

I did the carving and he the driving. I left New Jersey in June of 1959, when he was only 8 years old. It had been nearly half a century since we'd seen each other. I'm not even sure we saw each other before my family left the area, so it may have been a full half century. In any case, both of us are orphans now. Further, he has no siblings nor paternal cousins. His mother Catherine was my mother Elizabeth's younger sister. He and I are both Van Tines. Here we are together in middle age in Marin and Adair's kitchen at AzureGreen:


Photo by Holli Emore