Watermelon Seeds And Beetles

When I was younger I caught up with family members at their weddings. Then I caught up with them at their children's weddings. Time marched on and I caught up with family at the funerals of the generation ahead of me: parents, uncles, aunts. Then a milestone happened and the first of my generation died after a protracted illness and in true (my) family tradition he didn't invite anyone to his funeral and instead invited us all to a celebration of life with instructions to tell many stories and the funnier the better. That was how I found myself in Brisbane for a couple of days, perusing public libraries and attending a wake where I caught up with cousins that I hadn't seen since they were in primary school.

Both myself and the cousin whose life we celebrated were the second children born to our respective parents, part of the first trickle of what would become a torrent of cousins, and we spent quite a bit of time together at the family farm. Black and white photos show us sitting in our underwear in deep summer grass, holding huge slices of watermelon with waterfalls of juice running down our round bare tummies. I remember watermelon seed spitting contests.

The cousin in question was a round and placid little boy with a remarkable skill for eating beetles. His older sister presented him with the flair of a ring master at a circus show and I watched in 4-year-old awe as he crunched his way through pre-watermelon snacks.

He grew into a placid and good-natured man, although he gave up on eating beetles in favour of more conventional nutrition. He was a butcher, and played football. As adults we didn't stay in touch but I knew what he was doing due to the ability of capacious families to circulate knowledge about where everyone is at without once following any formal channels of knowledge dispersal. He got married and had a family: one beloved wife and two precious daughters. He ceased butchering and became a school groundsman and on the odd occasions that we met he told funny stories about little things that happened in his life.

And then he got sick, the same illness that claimed his father so he knew what was coming. And that was how I found myself arriving at his celebration with a fair portion of my multitudinous cousins, a sprinkling of still-surviving aunts, and a little family grieving but determined to honour his wishes.

I drank cups of tea and tried in vain to catch up with everyone. The room was not conducive to conversation: voices bounced off the walls and created a dull roar which made it impossible to hear. A cousin and I held a long conversation with an elderly aunt, nodding dutifully and not hearing a word she said. She didn't seem worried, happy to have an audience for all the words that she needed to put out into the world.

The wake drew to a close as kookaburras cackled in the trees outside. The aunts, uncles, and cousins kissed, hugged, and waved goodbye. The wife and daughters packed up the photographs and memorabilia, tucked the stories and the memories deep inside, and went home under the watchful eye of a fat goanna in a tree beside the deck.  The earth continued its spinning journey around the sun, and all the grief in the world could not slow it down.