I don’t recall enjoying myself more. When Mark suggested the idea eighteen months ago, I had no reservations, thought it would work, but didn’t have a clue about the positive energy the reunion would unleash.
Mark Allen Evans, a first cousin, called me on the phone in the fall of 2009 from Boise, Idaho and asked if I was amenable to getting together with him and Keith Edwin Stansell, another cousin, at my Tucson home. He said something about the commonality of our intellectual gifts and his intuition some serendipitous good could come from it. Keith (71), Mark (63), and Yours Truly (67) have never been close. Other than being first-born, we couldn’t be more dissimilar, or so I thought, as we’ve traveled such totally different roads during our lifetimes. In spite of it, I thought it would be fun to share family stories and our unique histories because of the diversity.
Mark and I knew the biggest roadblock to a visit was Keith. I’m not sure what scared him most. Perhaps it was the idea of riding in a car with Mark for 2,000 miles or his apprehension of spending too much time with me. But, it was Mark’s problem to convince Keith to join us. While the two of them were never buddies, most of their adult lives had been spent circumventing the road of hard knocks. Both of them were married three times, were now single, had survived years of addiction problems, and now had no retirement nest eggs. However, they were cum laude graduates from the School of Hard Knocks.
When Mark called thirty days ago, he was convinced, although not certain that the two of them would begin their journey to Tucson in late February. I’m not sure if it was Keith’s kids or siblings who convinced him, but all of them told him to go, that it would be good for him. Maybe at his age, this would be the last time he’d be able to make such a trip. On the day before they left, Mark called to say it was a go and that Keith’s chance to see his son Mike on the way down had clinched the deal.
However, there was one big hitch on their trip down. Mark ran out of gas just north of Flagstaff. But, with lady luck, he hitched a ride within a few minutes of their untimely stop, albeit on the bed of an open pickup from two attractive Navajo women. Fortunately, the nearest gas station was two miles away because at thirty degrees, you can hunker down only so far in the bed of a moving truck. Cold is cold.
When Mark and Keith finally arrived at our home at 11:00 PM on Wednesday, they were starving. My wife, Helen, was prepared with hot chicken tomatillo posole soup and quesadillas. That meal commenced a four-day talkathon. You’d think the guys would’ve been exhausted, but they were ready for some serious reminiscing and we didn’t head to bed until 12:30 AM.
Keith and Helen were the first to get up. When I joined them, Keith was wound up like the energizer bunny, ready for conversation. A few minutes later, a disheveled Mark staggered to the kitchen, telling us he had been awakened by the lively chatter and hoped he hadn’t missed anything. From that point at 8:00 AM, there wasn’t a lull in the conversation until thirteen hours later when we decided to call it a day. (If someone had told me beforehand that this was possible, I wouldn’t have believed it.) We packed the day with non-stop stories, heart-rending confessions, gut-wrenching laughter. We were old-men shedding tears, boys being boys, and trying as best we could to do animated imitations of our Grandpa Vern Evans. Despite several Mina moments (memory lapses), we were grateful that Mark acted on his intuition.
On Friday, we started at 7:00 AM and did not take a break, except for meals, and even then didn’t stop talking, until we went to bed at 10:00 PM. 
At no time during those two days did I get bored, thinking I had enough. I knew such a point would come if we allowed it, but plans were for Mark and Keith to leave on Saturday. And for the three of us, it turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a poignant, soul-stirring reunion.
After Mark returned home, he made the following Facebook post: “It was a week both magnificent and sublime—an experience that cannot be lost or taken away—for three first-born cousins who’ve come full circle in their lives and found each other again in time and space with nearly identical intellectual, philosophical and emotional states of being. It was an elevating and emotional experience filled with extreme synchronicity.”
Keith said several times that he couldn’t remember ever having a better time. In an email he confessed: “After the first fifteen minutes with Mark, what with us exchanging stories so easily, I had no more reservations about spending four days in a car with him. From experience, I’ve learned it’s hard for me to go on a road trip more than twenty-four hours with even the most compatible of companions. Even when Mark insisted he knew a better route than our GPS system suggested, I smiled and said to myself, ‘I don’t have a time limit.’ I hope Mark enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his. Extending the trip a few hours gave us more time to gab.”
So what made the reunion work so well? I think it’s because we have so much in common—the same intensity, drive, and need to say what we say loudly (it’s probably because we’re hard of hearing). We are three peas in a pod when it comes to our politics, religion and compassion for the human condition. We unconditionally love our families, in spite of what we or they may have done inappropriately. We can openly admit mistakes, have learned from past errors of judgments, want to continually improve our thinking skills, aren’t inclined to blame the supernatural for the good and evil in the world, and we are unable to believe in faith-based assumptions.
Before sharing a few of the stories we told, let’s fast forward to Saturday afternoon. While Mark and Keith were driving home, three hours from Las Vegas, Mark called his sister Lynn. To his surprise, she and her sisters Nina and Ruth were in Vegas celebrating Lynn’s 60th birthday. It didn’t take long to schedule a second serendipitous reunion.
Keith described this chance meeting as “an amazing coincidence to have Mark’s sisters attending a Scrabble marathon in Vegas, when we had no idea where they were before deciding to take a different route home.”
Keith went on to say, “I’m so glad ‘the girls’ decided to come find us after we reached the MGM Grand parking garage. That place is so big, and they knew we’d get lost. While wandering through the MGM maze, Lynn and Ruth magically appeared. At first I thought it was a mirage. The girls laughed hysterically at the puzzled look on my face. How they found us, I don’t know—maybe luck or divine intervention by a higher power.”
Maybe it’s an Evans thing to get sidetracked but I wanted to share that story before sharing more about the Tucson reunion. Keith had the most to say and his openness and naiveté were catalytic. He loves telling stories, although is easily distracted. When you close your eyes and listen, it’s Grandpa talking, and he imitates Grandpa’s GODDD damn IT! to perfection.
The most heartbreaking story Keith shared was about the time he went to visit Grandma at the rest home near the end of her life journey. When Grandma saw Keith, she said, “I think I know you.”
“Yes, you do,” Keith replied.
Grandma looked into his eyes and said, “Yes, but I don’t know your name.” She hesitated and thought, “You’re someone who loves me.”
That story still brings tears to my eyes. Oh my, how we loved Grandma and Grandpa Evans. We paid tribute to them many times during our reunion, bringing tears or laughter depending on the story we told.
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