Last week, I attended another funeral of a loved one. During the repast, a family member observed that we seem to only see some family members, especially young family members, at funerals, and in many cases do not know that they are family. She went on to remind those present that immediate family and extended family members knew one another in the past as a result of practices that were routine. How many of you recall the days when parents regularly took their children to visit other family members at their homes, back in the day?
Back in the day, you may recall having Sunday dinner shortly after arriving home from church. My mother referred to this meal as supper to differentiate the Sunday family meal from our weekday and Saturday dinners. By eating around 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we had the rest of the day for fun family activities. So, what did we do? Along with our parents, we set out, walking I should add, to visit family. How well do I recall these visits? I admit that I did not realize the value of visits with family, back then, but over the years, I especially realize how invaluable these visits have been for me. These visits contributed mightily to my growth and development. While my parents were a first source in the development of my value system, these values were reinforced through interactions with family members. You could always count on being interrogated by family members about how things were going in school, questions about the character your friends were regularly asked, more questions about your plans for the future, and certainly, other questions that required you to think about who you were and who you might become.
In many respects, our deterioration of family relationships likens to the thoughts from a 1980 book by a friend, George Trower-Subira. In his book “Black Folks’ Guide To Making Big Money In America,” Trower-Subira points out that “one thing that is keeping Blacks from making a lot of money is a good job.” In case you do not get his point, he argues that once one gets a good job, they can afford a new car, pay their mortgage and go out for dinner on a regular basis. Thus, they tend to become complacent and the hustle and drive to be entrepreneurial and make more money disappears. Perhaps we can draw an analogy from Trower-Subira by concluding that one of the things that is impacting on the warm, close family relationships that we enjoyed in the past is Black folks getting better jobs and acquiring more money. For it appears that the more we gain in wealth, the more we lose in family and personal relationships. So, the opportunity to walk from one street to another, or get a car ride or bus across town currently is often replaced with long rides, even air travel, to maintain family contacts.
Relationships were not limited to local family, but also family from out of town. In my household, it was usually our family from White Plains, New York. Will I ever forget my Uncle Douglas, my father’s brother, driving from White Plains to Philadelphia? The anticipation of his arrival with other family members created a great deal of excitement. While I looked forward to their arrival, I must admit that I just hated the first contact. The big hug from my Uncle Douglas with a kiss on my forehead or cheek can still be felt today. Most memorable is that long, thick mustache brushing across my face. I cannot imagine ever ridding myself of the distinctive tobacco smell so characteristic of my Uncle Douglas. Then I cannot I ever forget the way my uncles and aunts always commented on how I had grown since the last time they saw me. You may have experienced such memorable meetings that were distasteful to you, back in the day.
Many of us growing up back in the day had similar experiences. Today, our grandparents are gone, mother and father are gone, as well as many uncles and aunts. Thus, the events that brought us together and kept us together are likely gone. You may recall when family members lived in the house next door and were truly a part of the extended family. Now, many of our family members live in homes miles away. So, back to Trower-Subira, it may be a good job that kept and is keeping Black-Americans from making a lot of money. Now, for some, it is a good job and improved lifestyle that are keeping us from the love and family bonding activities practiced in the past. No longer do we all live in the same neighborhoods, in walking distance to one another. It is not a simple matter of going down the street or around the corner to pay visits that most aunts, uncles and cousins paid to one another in the past. We now have money so we can live anywhere we want to live.
Examine your own family. You undoubtedly have relatives that you grew up with that live not only throughout the city, they live all over the Greater Delaware Valley — in fact, they live all over the country. Yes, we have grown immensely as a race and have jobs today that were unthinkable in the past — responsible jobs in the public and private sectors. We live in large homes. We must board air planes to come back to the area to drive by that little row house where we spent some of our most memorable years. We have large bank accounts, stocks, bonds, antique collections and other investments. We just do not have one foreign car, some have several foreign cars. Such is the life of many today.
We know that we have arrived! No one can tell us anything. But, in the process of arriving, there is that emptiness, that feeling that something has been lost. What has been lost are those close family relationships built from visits and connections with family that have left buried, sadly to say, back in the day.
