Hatfields vs. McCoys

Tomorrow should be a hoot. My brothers and I are hosting a birthday party for our Mother in Clarkston. We invited ALL of our family members, and received about 70 RSVPs. Everyone that I am related to will be at this event tomorrow. I'm hoping for the best, but expecting the worst! To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here is a partial guest list:

• Uncle Larry will be attending. No one in my family has spoken to Uncle Larry in over 10 years. Because of his actions, my brothers and I lost 100% of the inheritance that was coming to us from our grandparents estate in the early 1990's. We did see him a couple of times since then-- at his wife's funeral, and later at his 60th birthday party, where we met his new wife.


• Larry's kids are also coming. I haven't seen, or talked to them since the birthday party. No bad blood there-- just lost touch I guess, due to the feud with their father.


• Another cousin, Bill, is coming with his wife Jill. Also on the guest list is Bill's first wife. She accepted the invitation, but Bill got wind of it and his sister did some behind the scenes work to uninvite the first wife. I haven't heard if she understood the message-- maybe she's staying home-- or maybe she's enroute from NC as I type this.


• Of course my brother Jim and his kids are coming from Memphis. Also coming from Memphis will be Jim's former wife and her boyfriend. They all get along, strangely, so I don't forsee any fireworks there.


• Michael is coming to the party with me and meeting the insanity that I call a family for the first time. Of course he's already met Mom, Joel and Martha-- now he'll get to meet the rest of the 3-eyed lions!

I know I'm making too much of this. Everything will be fine. It will be cool to get some family pictures while we're all together. I can't remember being in the same room with all of my cousins since my childhood birthday parties. The pictures of me with my cousins will be something I cherish-- hopefully it gets taken (and it comes out good!). It's really special that so many of our relatives are driving in from other states to participate in Mom's birthday-- cool that we're all willing to overlook our differences for a couple of hours in Mom's honor. I know that Mom is loking forward to it, too.

I'll be back with updates (and hopefully pictures) tomorrow!