You Can't Pick Your Family… or Can You?

This is part of a chapter of my autobiography for English 460, Advanced Writing.  As of now, it's in the style of a memoir.  I want it to have a vibe of giving advice and teaching other people (especially young adults in high school and college) from my own experience.  However, it's ultimately something I'm writing just for me.  Whenever I finish my autobiography, maybe some of you will read it.  Maybe some of you won't.  Either way, I'll keep writing, living, and writing some more.

Chapter 2: You Can't Pick Your Family… or Can You?

We've all heard the phrase, "You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends."

I know I’m “stuck” with the family I have, but I wouldn’t change it.  Almost everybody on my dad's side of the family lives in St. Louis.  We don't see each other very often, but when we do, I love catching up with all of Uncle Chris's kids and seeing what they're up to.  One recently got married, and another just had a beautiful baby girl.  Somebody always has a new boyfriend or girlfriend to talk about and then finally introduce to everyone, so I can imagine it'll be quite interesting once any of my siblings or I bring somebody we're dating to a family party.  Each of my dad's four siblings has their own lives within their immediate families, but not many people can say the majority of their family still lives within an hour of each other, so that's pretty cool.  Some of the distant cousins live in southern California, and it's always awesome to see them.  My immediate family has a slight- okay huge- obsession with California, and we like to joke in a mostly serious way that we wish we grew up there like Joe's kids and grandkids.

This picture I've painted of my family seems pretty normal, but I haven't told you anything about my mom's family yet.  If you've ever seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you have a fairly accurate image of the Vitale family.  Including me, there are 27 cousins.  Yes, first cousins, just like the movie.  The key difference here is we are Italian, but just like the Portocolous family, we are very proud of our heritage.  Not at all on the level of statues in our yards or a garage door painted to look like the nation's flag, but we care a lot about being Italian.  I've never been to a family party without pasta, many times including homemade meatballs from Nanu's recipe that I've never learned but need to some day.  We also usually have toasted ravioli with our meal (your life will never be the same once you try one!) and cannolis for dessert.  Italian food isn't the only thing we like to eat- we'll pretty much eat anything that isn't healthy for us- but food is the focal point of family gatherings no matter what kind of day it is.  In fact, it's hard for me to remember what my uncle Sam's house looks like without a bunch of chairs and tables set next to an array of desserts and a buffet of food.  Back to that movie reference, the names in our are similar, too.  When somebody outside the family comes to a party, we introduce them and joke about everybody in our family being named "Anita, Diane and Nick."  We have so many repeating names.  Big Joey and Little Joey, Big Josie and Little Josie, Aunt Rose (my mom) and Rosa, Nicky and Nick, Angie and Angela, and the list goes on.  My parents even chose to name their four kids classic American names that likely would not be repeated in the family, but somehow my given name, Melissa, morphed from "Melissa Jo" to "Jo Jo" and I've become a part of the "Joes and Josies" in the family.  Again, although it's a little strange, that's something I would not want to change.

Another saying we often hear growing up is, "Friends may come and go, but family is forever." This couldn't be more true.  However, I have trouble letting people go.  I guess some part of my DNA propels me to always be around people, take care of them, and make sure they're happy before I think about myself.  These are the people that God gives me sporadically throughout life, and some are meant to stay close for longer than others. These are the people I can choose on my own- my friends.  In my family, one of my grandmothers on my mom’s side is actually not related to us at all.  We call her “Grandma Di” (her name is Diane), and we consider her our grandma because my mom’s mom, our Nana, died before we were born.  Grandma Di and Nana were best friends.  A classic Grandma Di response to the comment “Your grandchildren just look like you.” is “Thank you! I know they do!”  It never gets old.

One of the best anecdotes I have to describe my family is Sundays at Nanu's house.  When he was still alive, all of Nanu's 6 kids would gather with their children at his house for pasta and swimming on Sunday's.  We are still "bitter" about only receiving one meatball in our pasta bowl while the adults got more.  We played with the lazy Susan on the table until we finished our meals.  Who cared about waiting 30 minutes to swim after eating?  This was the house with a high-dive over the swimming pool and rafts to slip N slide off the low dive into the water.  Jumping off the high dive with your water wingies by age 4 was a rite of passage.  Looking back, that concrete was way too close to the spot where we'd land, but we were fearless- or at least thought we were.  We still all talk about the famous family photo where all 20+ kids (the younger ones hadn't been born yet) gathered on and around the diving board.  The beautiful black and white photo can be found in each of our parents' homes. Three of my cousins actually took a picture later and their mom cut that out and pasted it into the group photo- talk about Photoshop!  Another cousin is falling off the board as the picture is being taken and his brother clutches his swim trunks to keep him from falling.  It's hilarious to see how we've all grown up, and while there are so many of us and we have our own lives individually and within in our smaller families, we'll always have the common bond of diving boards and meatballs.