This is a story I was reminded of last week with a few more details filled in along the way.

My grandfather was #7 of 9 children. #s 2, 4, and 5 of his siblings married neighbouring siblings, let’s call them the Lang family.

Siblings moved around, got married, worked, had children and kept in touch. In the way of the era, sibling#1, call him Joe and then his son, call him Joey, stayed on the farm. As the cousins grew, even living in different communities, they knew each other, kept in touch and visited back and forth. It starts to take an effort to keep in touch and care about each other as you spread out, but some of these cousins remained close and kept an eye on their older relatives.

Sibling#8, let’s call her Joan, married a man who made money. They lived in various places, including the one we lived in when I was born, making it easier for a time to keep in touch with my parents, but they never had any children of their own.

When Joan’s husband died, she first moved closer to the original community where Joey and the Langs still lived and then to the right-next-door small town. From reports, so that the Langs could better take care of her.

As a child I tended to be invisible and often overheard things I didn’t really understand. Once when we were staying at Joeys, we also went to visit Aunt Joan, as usual – we always went to visit aunts and uncles, cousins, or some old friend from school wherever we went. Before we went to see Aunt Joan, Joey mentioned something to my dad about the cleanliness of the house and the contents of the pantry, which I thought was weird and probably why I remember.

I do remember the house feeling small and crowded. With us visiting (there were 6 of us) it wouldn’t have had to be extremely small to feel crowded. It could even be that Aunt Joan had fragile things so it felt scary to move around and risk breaking something, even if it wasn’t small.

In any case, whatever Dad reported back to Joey made him gloat a bit and I didn’t know any more until quite a few years later when I heard my Dad talk about Joey and the Langs.

Seems that Joey and Dad were not as concerned about Aunt Joan’s money as they were about Aunt Joan but they weren’t sure if the same could be said for the Langs.

Every now and then Joey would notice something about the state of Aunt Joan’s house or lack of good food and wonder out loud to the Langs if caring for her was too much effort for them. He wondered if he and my Dad should take their turn and move Aunt Joan to where Dad lived and relieve them of their burden.

Suddenly, whatever the concern was would be fixed and Aunt Joan would be properly taken care of.

When Aunt Joan died, she left her money to the Lang cousins. Joey was satisfied, because they had taken good care of Aunt Joan, albeit with a little encouragement. Dad still shakes his head and laughs whenever any of them come up in conversation.

I admire that kind of thinking. I am mostly of the “do the right thing because it’s the right thing” mentality. I’m sure there are times when other incentives help out, but it would never occur to me to visit my elderly aunt or neighbour, clean her house or get groceries so that she would leave her money to me. (For one thing, all my aunts had kids and for another, I never notice that things need cleaning…) And it would never occur to me to work sideways at that kind of concern.

Whether the neglect of the Aunt Joan was due to distraction or because the Langs really were most interested in her money and didn’t care as much about her, Joey kept the focus on doing the right thing.

First, he paid attention and noticed the problems – he cared for Aunt Joan. Then, he pointed out the concerns and problems to the Langs, who had taken on the responsibility of addressing those concerns but didn’t seem to be doing a thorough job and to another cousin who cared enough but wasn’t close enough to notice or address them without insider knowledge. And finally, he encouraged right behaviour by voicing some consequences that could result were the problems not addressed.

Joey never accused or attacked, that I know of. He did make it in the best interests of the Lang family to do and continue to do the right thing.

I want to be like cousin Joey but have no idea how to think that way.