Remember how I told y'all how much I enjoy taking photos of our elders? Yeah, I really wasn't joking. How could you call yourself a photographer and NOT like that? Every single time I do it it results in a capture that brings so much more than an image. Forget about the visual stimulation of bokeh. These wonderful people produce more depth than any other individuals.
Don't let the name of the picture fool you. No, this is not my mother. This is actually Aunt Ella Mae. She would be my great-great Aunt. I think? Can't remember how many greats would be in there. But I know she is my cousin Gloria's mother and Gloria calls her "Mother". That's all I think of when I see this picture now so it just seemed to fit perfectly as the title.
This one came from another family reunion that the Fleming Family had this year. Yes, we actually have two reunions a year. The major one is held in Arkansas on Labor Day weekend. That's usually the one with the biggest turnout. But then we also have a smaller get-together in Kansas City on Memorial Day weekend. I still can't recall how that one originated. I just always considered it a warm up to the grand finale to be held further south later in the year.
I can't remember the last time I attended both of them. When I was still living in Des Moines I would sometimes lean more towards the Kansas City one only because it was closer. Usually because I couldn't use that much vacation time to get away to both. Once I got down here, I decided this would be the one year I would change that. Mainly because it would be the one guaranteed opportunity that I would get to see my folks at least twice a year. The Arkansas reunion was a gimme with it being only 4 hours away from me now. The 8 hour drive to Kansas City was worth. Otherwise I'm looking at a 13 hour drive to Bloomington to see them.
There's normally a soft agenda for what will take place during the Kansas City weekend. Meaning that a schedule is made of who's hosting brunch one day and dinner the next, but nothing as far as full-fledged events and/or outings. There really is no need to. The purpose of a reunion is to get together to fellowship with family anyway. It is much easier to do that in intimate settings like somone's house. As long as you have family that have a home big enough to accommodate such a gathering.
Saturday is usually the day that we all congregate at my cousin Ear's place in Raytown, MO. I love that place. It always feels like a home away from home to me. Probably because Earl is one of the Big Four (oldest first cousins) and I don't get to see him that much. Also because it's just a hop, skip and jump away from Arrowhead Stadium. Given that fact, it's rather ridiculous that I STILL haven't been able to make it to a Chiefs game. I am putting that on the "to do" list for next year.
So I thought there wasn't supposed to be any type of planned activity going on when we got there. Little did I know we would be having an impromptu family meeting. One of the topics brought up was something about a proposal to have the Memorial Day mid-year reunion be on a more rotating basis in different cities? I wasn't fully following the conversation. I personally knew I didn't want it to ever be anywhere different than Kansas City. But other family members were a bit more spirited about their discussion on the same topic. It made for some interesting conversation which is always fun with my family.
I happened to get the capture of Aunt Ella Mae as she was in the midst of all this conversation. The look was as if she was biding her time waiting to finally put in her valued opinion. She probably did and I wasn't paying attention. As usual, I was just foucsing on getting the best photo possible. I actually ended up taking very few pictures that weekend. I concentrated more on spending time with family I hadn't seen in a while. But I made sure the few I did get counted. Case in point.
I didn't intend to take a lot of photos there.
love, love, love
Posted by: Auntie | 21 December 2013 at 08:48 AM