Started out short, but ended up rambling.

Kira mentioned something about ham on her blog, which was in no way, shape or form what the post is about. But, it did make me think about this story from the husband's side of the family.

Now, to understand this story, you have to understand that the husband's grandfather was a Jew, who had married a Gentile. And you also have to know (just in case you have never learned anything about the subject) that Jews do not eat ham.

Now, according to family folklore, Grandpa loved ham. And the story goes that one night, while the family was enjoying a ham dinner, Grandpa's sister came over, uninvited, unexpected, and most unwelcome. Thinking quickly, Grandpa grabbed the ham and threw it under the table, where it was hidden by the tablecloth. (I guess his sister never noticed the scent of baked ham in the air?)

However long Grandpa's sister was there, it seemed like forever to his hungry family. Finally, however, she left and they were free to continue their meal. Grandpa quickly dove under the table to retrieve the ham, only to discover that everyone had forgotten about the dog.

The dog greatly enjoyed his surprise ham dinner, I'm told.

It's interesting getting even this much information out of the husband about his family. I grew up in a swirl of family folklore. I have a million stories about my grandparents and great-grandparents, ranging from the interesting (my grandmother's first ride on an airplane), to the sad (Grandma running frantically to the neighbors for help when her younger sister had whooping cough), to the sweet (Grandpa courted Grandma for quite some time, trying to convince the divorcee to give marriage a second chance), to the truly dysfunctional (the Christmas that Santa Claus was drunk and how his beard caught on fire from the candles on the Christmas tree.)

(I have more of the dysfunctional stories than any other kind I'm afraid. Which is fine. They're funnier, after all.)

The husband's family, however, lives by the code that if you don't acknowledge it, it didn't happen. So, while my family emotes constantly about everything that passes through our minds, his family never talks about anything. Even when my father-in-law had a stroke, and his sons visited him in the hospital, no-one talked about anything. At least, until a plane went by and then they talked about aircraft.

All of which makes it very hard to get any information about his family history. There's so much that he just doesn't know, and since he doesn't know it, it's gone forever, because he's the only surviving member of his mother's side of the family.

There's so many questions I have, that the husband just doesn't have the answers to, and it blows me away that he never asked these questions while his mother was alive. It never occurred to him to be curious about how his grandfather's family felt about him marrying a Baptist? When did the family come over to America? We know they came from Poland, and we know the name was changed, but we don't know when and we don't know what the name was over in Poland. He knows that there was family left in Poland, in fact most of the family stayed over there. He knows that the letters stopped coming during WWII. He doesn't know if anyone ever made an effort to find out what happened to them, though.

He knows more about the Hispanic side of his family, but only about the family history, not about the current family. He's never met most of his cousins. I know he has an uncle who was a rocket scientist, presumably at NASA. His father and siblings have never met the girls and have never expressed an interest. I want to take the girls to meet them, but the husband just shrugs and grunts when I bring the subject up. And I'll admit, I feel a little nervous to press the subject when I have only met the people a handful of times myself.

I always wondered, when I was young, what my future inlaws would be like. I still wonder.

I just do not understand how a family can exist in this kind of limbo. Honestly, how can you go along, only communicating when someone dies?

And Michael is going to be like his dad, I can tell. Once he's out of the house, I'll be surprised if we have much to do with him after that.

I can't see the girls being like that. They take too much after me. Emotionally open is an understatement for the three of us. And if they do eventually show signs of taking after their father's family, I'll insist on all of us moving out west to be near my family. That'll fix the problem, fast.