The Brenneman Clan: Threads in the Tapestries of Families

The second family reunion of the summer (the first is here, in case you missed it) was a gathering of the Brenneman clan. This one took place just north of Colorado Springs, which was convenient and also allowed me to show the family around to some of my favorite places.

The Brennemans are my maternal grandmother's family: the seven children of Fred and Millie Page Brenneman and all their descendants.

On the first full day of the reunion, I led a group hike to Red Rock Canyon.

I didn't get a full count, but probably 30-40 people came along, which was more than half the group.

I was afraid it would rain on us, but it ended up being beautiful.

I love all the wildflowers this time of year.

That afternoon, another big group of us went to the Olympic Training Center. There were 25 of us, so we got our own private tour. Our tour guide was funny. (You can tell because even Isaac cracked a bit of a smile.)

When not out exploring the Springs, we were hanging out at our retreat center, The Hideaway. The big backyard was especially nice.

My frisbee-obsessed second cousin taught this game called Redemption, sort of a version of Monkey in the Middle.

And there was a Gaga court, so...

There was some board game-playing (but certainly not anything of Nussbaum proportions).

This game of chess was particularly cute.

There was some puzzling.

There was some artfully assembled food. (Side note: the vegetarian option was always incredible. Meat lovers, your loss.)

There was talent show hilarity.

And there was some planning for the next reunion.

Alongside the abundant quality time with loved ones, I did some introspecting, of course.

Only two of my four grandparents' families had regular reunions when I was growing up, so this is the extended family I know the best, but I don't think that's the only reason why I feel a strong kinship to the Brennemans. It's the family culture, too.

There's a joke about Brenneman arguments. These occur when two or more people are arguing, and they are actually in agreement about whatever the subject matter is, but they still manage to argue about it. Clarity of speech, exactness, and articulation matter to us.

Some other things run in the Brenneman family: Hazel eyes. Graduate degrees. Teaching. Traveling.

In my estimation, among the sixty-odd family members, we have dozens of graduate degrees, roughly 20 teachers and professors, and over 75 different countries visited. Even in the short window of a few days spent together, it's so easy to see that the core values of the Brennemans are education, travel, honesty, and forthrightness. All these values were wholly espoused by our shared ancestors -- Fred and Millie Brenneman, missionary doctors and teachers. And I see them all deeply ingrained in myself.

Little did Fred and Millie know that when they moved to India in the 1930s, where my grandmother was born, they were picking up cultural gems that their family would still be carrying eighty years later. Even now, when subsets of the Brennemans gather at a restaurant, it is often for Indian food. As a child, when I finished all the food on my plate, my grandmother would tell me I'd earned a shabash: Hindi for "well done."

I dearly value these times spent with family, because it lends such insight into the intricacies of my ancestral architecture. In observing the minutia of people's interactions with one another, I can see how the patterns coalesce into trends spanning generations. There are values passed down from one generation to the next, and there are habits and personality traits that are mirrored from one to another. And then there are the reactionary patterns, when one set of siblings have modeled their lives so as to break with a trait of the parents.

It reminds me of superhero comics and movies, because we love to hear their origin stories. But we all have origin stories of our own, too. For some, it may not be biological family so much as friends, adopted family, culture, or place. But we all have them: those spaces and stories which make up our very selves. They are the bedrock of our identity, and the sources may vary, but the essence is the same.

By studying my grandparents and their generation, I learn about myself. By soaking up stories of Fred and Millie's life together, I am steeped in the distinctive flavor of my family. By looking upward, I learn inward.