Anne Gilbert Beidler

Confessions of a Member of the Class of '62 who Always Resisted Reunions

            But I went. 

            Last week-end I most reluctantly let myself be included in the 45^th reunion of our class of 1962.   Muttering on the plane all the way from Seattle. Humphing and garumphing about how I hate all that cocktail party kind of conversation they do at reunions and who really cares who succeeded at what after all this time because we are all squatting over the grave anyway, and besides, I was just barely out of diapers back in 1962, so why would I want to dredge up anything I thought or felt or believed in way back then?  

            But I went.

            And sure enough, there we all were, back at Earlham.   The oaks were turning orange, but that just means winter is coming, I grumbled.  The schedule was full of meaty talks, but I declined them all, sure that my head was already full of more than enough information about this imploding culture of ours.   There was ample—do I really need to ask one more person where they live and how many children they have?—opportunity to chat, but even we members of the once remarkable class of 1962 have by now turned into a bunch of senior citizens, I reminded myself.

            There was one thing I did know, however.  I may have been cranky about the reunion, but what I really came to Richmond for was to visit my aunt.   The one I used to baby sit for when I was at Earlham.  The one who sometimes lent her house to us (emptying it of husband and children and all their clutter and leaving two freshly baked pies on the kitchen counter) so my friends and I could cook a real meal there and sit around her dining room table and pretend we were grown-ups.   Better than a restaurant.  And almost as good as home.

            This aunt was a large part of the reason I came to Earlham long ago.   She made me a dress for the homecoming dance, she taught me how to make raspberry jelly, she liked all my Earlham friends I brought over to her house, and she treated me as if I were just fine the way I was and she would always love me no matter what else I might become.   And she has.  So for sure I wanted to visit her in her new living arrangement, an assisted living facility in a new part of Richmond.  

            She uses a walker now, and all that is left of her big house full of possessions is a picture or two on her nightstand and a couple of chairs squeezed in beside the bed.   There is no garden outside her window.  She is surrounded by strangers.  And, hardest of all to see, she has no kitchen.   It is one thing to have a kitchen, even a small one, and choose not to cook much at all, but it is something else entirely, I imagine, to be an amazing cook like my aunt and have no kitchen at all.  

            But the time has come, she says.  The time has come for a change.   She smiles and greets the passersby in the hall outside her room.  They have already figured out how nice it is to talk with her.  

            How do you like your new home, I ask her, not seeing much to like.  

            I like it fine, she says softly. 

            But don't you miss your big house, I think to myself, with your paintings and your grandmother's china and your wine glasses from Germany?   Don't you miss your meetings and your old neighbors and your rose bushes and your church suppers? 

            The food is good here, she says to me, as if she can read my mind.   And the people are kind.  My children all helped me move in.  I'm very, very lucky. 

            Goodbye, I said, hugging her gently.  I will see you at the reunion.   For she graduated from Earlham too, as did my mother and father and my other aunt and two of my uncles.  All of them are gone now, except her.

            And when I see her briefly the next day at the lunch table reserved for the mature older alumni, she smiles at me, the way she always has, and tells me it is so good to see me (even though we both know that she can barely see at all, what with that wretched macular degeneration that has blotted her vision).   I kiss her again and wonder if I have ever really told her how much she means to me. 

            Surely I have.  Haven't I?   Or have I been too busy whining about reunions and things.

            Thus, it began with my Earlham aunt.  And it went on from there—the Earlham-ness just started seeping in.   I started to pay attention to this reunion of mine.  I was astonished to note that of the sixty some people in our class group there was not a single one I could find any reason to dislike.   Could this be?  They were all, class members and spouses alike, just very nice, very good, very real people.  No one was bragging, no one was gossiping, no one was belittling.  I had to admit that I was probably the worst person in the room. 

            Then there was the soothing Earlham-ness that comes from being in a place where most people just plain accept that peace and social justice are real and important goals to work for.   I felt safe.  I wanted to put my feet up and sigh and soak up the comfort of such a communty. 

            And then, speaking of Earlham-ness, there was Tom Mullen making everybody laugh in the meeting house (where my husband and I were married long ago) because he too finds it hard to stay on course sometimes when the world around him seems to be bursting with pride about its poor choices.  

            So, let me put it this way.  I am now a recovering reunion hater.  

            Thanks to my wise aunt, thanks to our splendid Suzy-Gloria team, and thanks to the Earlham in all of us, in the space of one short week-end, I found myself spiraling from the cynical why-did-I-ever-waste-time-at-Earlham place to the boy-was-I-ever-lucky-they-let-me-come-here place.   I even bought a tee shirt. 

            My hope now is that I have brought some of that lovely Earlham-ness home with me.   And that I will know what to do with it.