Isabel From Ireland

The excellent and superbly written review for Edna O'Brien's newest book (on Slate's Book Blitz) brought to mind another Irish woman...

A cousin from Ireland, one I'd never met before, visited my family for two weeks this past summer. Isabel was her name, an attractive looking woman in her mid-40's, and we were happily prepared to entertain when she arrived on our doorstep in August with 3 of her 6 children, all teenagers, 2 girls and a boy. She had long contemplated making this trip for over two years, and only by the urging of her husband and unrelenting pleas of her children did she finally decide to book the plane tickets and go for it.

While her chldren and ours bonded almost immediately, it took her a few days to feel sufficiently comfortable around my 3 sisters and myself - we were all roughly around the same age - but gradually as the first week wore on and we traveled together to visit places like the beach, NYC and DC, she began opening up to us about her life in Ireland, and her first impressions of the US.

She was stunned by all the little luxuries (2 cars in a family, garages, remotes for everything) all the activity and the technology that permeated our everyday lives, finding it at times thrilling but mostly bewildering and unnecessary (4 computers in one household, for instance) although both her daughters had cellphones, her 16 year old son had no use for one. She dressed in a kind of utilitarian manner, something I understood from when I was a mother with much younger children at home - you rarely looked at yourself in the mirror or thought much about how you dressed. She had a "makeover" at Bloomingdales and blushed furiously when they made a huge fuss over her because she was from Ireland - it was pretty obvious that she'd never been fussed over like that in her whole life. She bought some flattering new clothes and shoes that weren't as "sensible" as they were stylish.

Isabel was remarkably well-read and educated, as were each of her children, not to mention totally aware, knowledgeable and opinionated on almost all current events. This was the one striking difference I noted and felt we came so far short in comparison as to be an embarrassment. She would regularly use literary references in conversation or to describe something, a habit her children seemed to pick up naturally too, often leaving my own teenagers puzzled and clueless. Needless to say, it made an impression on them as well.

The two weeks flew by, when it was time for them to leave my sisters and I felt we had gained a new sibling, and we all cried at the airport, lots of hugs and promises for a future visit to Ireland next summer.

It was a couple weeks later that I received an email from Isabel, describing the inevitable letdown after such an exciting trip - "the best two weeks of my whole life" as one of her daughters said.

She described standing at her kitchen sink and losing herself in thought about the things she'd seen on the trip, she was surprised at how much she missed it and wanted to come back, how addicted she had become to all the daily trips and just the fun, laughter, excitement and festive atmosphere of being around a large extended family.

But mostly, she missed the daily contact with me and all my sisters. We were not without influence, things had already changed in their household - the old home computer they'd been using (all sharing the same email address) was just recently replaced with an upgraded model, and she's been emailing us pretty much on a weekly basis ever since.

And just a few days ago, when I stumbled across Stephen King's "It" wedged into the side of our living room sofa with one of the pages folded over to bookmark it, I knew things had changed at my house, too.

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