A Real Voice Beats Mail Any Time

With a mixture of humor and frustration in my voice, I leave a message on my younger brother’s answering machine.

“Hello, brother, this is your sister, Merri Lou. I am still alive - please call me back!”

From experience I know that chances are very slim that he will return the call. A very private person, my brother prefers to talk to most people in person. Call me back? I don’t think so.

It is a family joke that my younger brother is the worst for returning phone calls. He does call our mother regularly, however, and the sister who is closest in age to him. So I turn to my Rolodex for another family member’s phone number. I have plenty of choices.

My Catholic parents had 10 children, born between 1952 and 1968, and we all are, God bless us, alive and well. Eight of us are married and we have given our parents 14 grandchildren. I’m number four and the oldest of the five girls.

Each of us has at least one college degree and six have master’s degrees; one brother is a thesis short of his doctorate, another is a lawyer, and the brother who doesn’t call is working on his MBA (Mother spread this news).

Our job titles are as varied as we are: special education teacher, nature preserve manager/college instructor, registered nurse, county property manager/nursing home assistant administrator, lawyer (maritime law), business development director, restaurant manager, museum business manager, international visitor exchange specialist for the U.S. Information Agency, registered dietitian/food writer.

The military lifestyle was ours as we grew up, and some of us embraced it for a while as adults. My dad and oldest brother are West Point graduates, another brother and sister followed the college ROTC route and I had a direct commission for my dietetic internship at Brooke Army Medical Center.

We moved every few years and our birthplaces reflect some of our stops along the way: Washington, Japan, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, Mannheim and Wurzburg (Germany), Arkansas, New Jersey. Twice we were stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., but no one was born there. Adaptation was the name of the game; I attended six different elementary schools and three high schools.

We were resilient “Army brats” who relied on our strong connections with each other to settle into each new, unfamiliar place. Nomads who embraced new adventures, now as grown-ups we find that it takes real effort to stay connected.

Reflecting on our lifestyles, I search through my Rolodex again, pulling out family members’ cards. Some are stapled or clipped together, since many of my siblings have moved a number of times. An older brother, in Doylestown, Pa., had been at the same address the longest - 14 years. He remarried recently and finds himself moving again; he claims four different addresses in four years.

The East Coast is home to most of us, with the exception of my youngest brother in California and myself here in Spokane. Our homes are in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey.

Communication takes some planning.

I don’t just pick up the phone in the evening to call someone in my family; with a three-hour time difference most of them have gone to bed as my family is settling into the evening routine.

If there is any common denominator in our family communication pattern, it is that most of us call Mother in Rhode Island on a regular basis. My dad, who recently moved back to Pensacola, Fla., is not quite as vigilant in keeping tabs on us, although he always passes on what family news he knows of when I call.

None of my brothers or sisters are particularly happy with the family system, but it is hard with 10 of us to call all the time - even with Sunday discount phone rates.

I like to be “in the loop,” as the saying goes, and even though there are fax machines, e-mail and good ol’ snail mail, my greatest satisfaction right now comes from picking up the phone and hearing a real voice. I love all my sisters and brothers very much, even my younger brother, who prefers to talk in person instead of on a telephone.