Mix and Match Cousins

PING.

I think I may finally understand what Family Camp is really about.

It's not just the activities. It's not the chocolate factory or Color War or the Jordan River or the late nights or the prizes or the hikes or the endless games.

It's Mix and Match Cousins. Every activity we did was an opportunity to mix up the cousins.

At Color War, cousins from different families ended up on the same teams. At the De Karina Chocolate Factory, other cousin combinations slurped chocolate malteds together. One night, we stayed up until who-knows-what-o'clock with parents and kids from four different families - city folks and farm folks, each on their own path - all hanging out together.

And now, looking through the pictures, I see it everywhere. Natah's Ammi holding Moshie's baby. Google-y google-y gooing her to smile. Natah's Itai with his arm around Moshie's Binyamin. I gotcha, pal. Moshie's little Elisheva deciding that she only wants to stay with Bati's Lavi and Natah's Tali. And the older kids, well, B"H, they are really besties.

This is what I was hoping for. Because I don't think I'm only trying to give my grandchildren a magical week. I'm trying to give them one another.

The activities are the vehicle.

The silly announcements, the art, the foam, the bikes, the late nights, the Jordan River - all of them are opportunities to create something that will last much longer than the activity itself.

SHARED HISTORY

Because kids grow up. They go to different schools and different kinds of shuls. They make their own friends in yeshiva or college or work. And I know that. But I also know that right now, they love each other. Right now, they love being together.

And I wish I could freeze time.

So I shop for weeks. I plan and plan and plan, trying to think of the most fun, engaging, ridiculous and memorable things we can do. But more than anything else, I want them to have adventures together. I want them to have stories that belong to all of them.

“Remember when Savta made those announcements every morning at breakfast? The whole dining room was listening in - and laughing right along with us.”

“Remember how scared Savta was to get into the Jordan River? She eeeeeked through every gush of mud between her toes. I will never forget her face.”

“Remember the chocolate factory? You drank your malted and the leftovers of everyone else's.”

“Remember when we stayed up until...”

And after 120, if I'm not around to organize Family Camp, I hope they'll still have each other.

They'll have stories nobody else quite understands. They'll have memories that belong to them. Maybe one cousin will recall something another cousin has forgotten.

Someone will say, “Remember when...?” Someone else will say, “Oh my gosh! Yessss, I remember!”

And they'll laugh. And they'll tell the story again. And that's the gift.

So I slosh through the mud of the Jordan River. I slide along the algae-covered springs of Beit She'an. I walk farther than my legs think they should have to walk. I smile along the fly-filled cow path. I stay up later than my eyes allow.

I do it because I want to be with them. I want to see them as something bigger than individual families. I want to see them as a blended family of the very best sort - a grandchild from this family with a grandchild from another family, trading their ices, their prizes, their jokes and their smiles.

They don't only share the same nose or blue eyes. They share the same heart.

I want them to look out for one another. I want them to look for one another. And I want those connections to continue for their whole lives.

Because maybe the greatest gift cousins can give one another is each other.

And maybe that's the greatest gift I can give them, too. ❤️

 

Show Me How You See the World: The Best Hour of Family Camp

I thought I knew what the highlight of Family Camp would be. Swimming in the Jordan River. Color War. Bingo for Prizes. Dinner under the stars.

I never imagined it would be thirty sheets of paper and a box of markers. The biggest surprise of the entire week turned out to be...our Family Art Exhibition.

About a month before Family Camp, I sent my children and grandchildren thirty simple drawing prompts. Draw your favorite animal… your family... your happiest memory... your favorite holiday. Draw yourself as a superhero. Draw your favorite sport.

Nothing fancy.

Truthfully, I wasn't looking for the next Picasso. (Although after seeing some of the artwork, I may have found one or two.) I simply wanted everyone - from my youngest grandchild to the oldest - to arrive at Family Camp already feeling like they belonged to one big family project.

As the month went by, pictures started arriving on my phone. "Look what I drew, Savta!"

Then something happened that I never expected. One evening, after Bingo for Prizes, instead of running off with their loot to play something else or heading to bed, the grandchildren came looking for paper and markers. Not because anyone told them to. Because they wanted to draw more pictures for the Exhibition.

They stayed up into the wee hours creating masterpieces. Or dragons. Or invisible superheroes. Or sports involving ironing boards.

Our Own Gallery

When Exhibition night arrived, we transformed a corner of the hotel lobby into our own little art gallery. Instead of organizing the pictures by artist, we displayed them by subject. Everyone's favorite animals together. Then everyone's happiest memories, everyone's families.

One by one, we wandered through our gallery. And that's when I understood something. I hadn't really asked them to draw pictures. Without realizing it, I had asked them, "Show me how you see the world."

And every single one answered differently.

One assignment was: Draw yourself as a superhero. Most drew themselves flying or showing amazing strength. One granddaughter handed me...a completely blank page. "What happened?" I asked. She grinned. "My superpower is invisibility."

Well...I laughed so hard I almost gave a Blue Ribbon to a blank piece of paper.

Another assignment: Draw your favorite holiday.

We admired beautiful pictures of Passover, Sukkot and Chanukah. Then my son picked up a drawing of a magnificent four-layer birthday cake. "What holiday is this?" he asked.

My granddaughter looked at him like the answer should have been perfectly clear. "My birthday. Obviously." You know what? She was right. Our birthday should be our favorite day.

Next: Draw your favorite sport. Soccer. Swimming. Basketball.

And then my daughter proudly showed us her pastel drawing. Blue sky. Three tiny stick figures, plus an ironing board. "What sport is THAT?" someone asked. "Skydive ironing."

We all laughed, but I looked it up. Apparently there really are people who jump out of airplanes carrying ironing boards and press clothes while falling through the sky.

Darlings, I don't know about you, but if I'm jumping out of an airplane, the wrinkles in my shirt are going to be the least of my worries.

One grandson decided that drawing thirty separate pictures was entirely too much work. So he cleverly squeezed almost every assignment onto one page. "That little dot is my dream house." "I couldn't draw my dog, Bingo, so I just wrote his name. And since my name starts with B, it also counts for the picture beginning with the first letter of my name. :-)"

I have to admit...his logic was flawless. One son did the same. He drew a landscape of mountains, river and trees. "My favorite animal is hiding in that dark spot." “Swimming is my favorite sport, but you can’t see me under the water.” “My favorite place is peaking out behind the trees.”

Then came one of my own pictures.

The assignment: Draw your happiest memory. I drew our family seated at the giant horseshoe-shaped table of Family Camp. The grandchildren crowded around.

Not one of them commented on the quality of the drawing. They each asked exactly the same question: "Which one is me?" "Where am I?"

I pointed. I pointed again. I kept pointing until every last grandchild had found his own face in the crowd around that table. Because children don't care whether a picture is beautiful. They want to know if they belong in it. And they do, every single one of them.

Finally...one picture stopped me in my tracks.

Envisioning Our Family

The assignment was simply: Draw your family. Most kids drew the people who live in their homes. 

One granddaughter titled hers, "My Family in 100 Years." She drew a picture frame filled with hundreds and hundreds of tiny circles. Not today's family. Tomorrow's. Children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren she hopes IY”H will one day fill her family tree.

Every picture in our gallery showed me how a child sees the world. But this one reminded me how far into the future a child can see. I looked at that drawing for a very long time. May Hashem bless her beautiful vision. May every one of those tiny circles become a real child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and beyond.

As the evening came to an end, we celebrated our exhibition with an ice cream reception.

I gathered every picture in a special binder. I’ll have to wait for the ones that were forgotten at home. Others have already announced they have more masterpieces to create. Apparently, our gallery is still accepting submissions.

I'm making them into a family book - not because every picture belongs in a museum, although a few probably do, but because one day these children will have grandchildren of their own. And I want them to remember not only what they drew...
...but how they once saw the world.