It was the first time in many years that all the brothers -- and one sister -- had gathered together.
The family had grown up in Eveleth, six brothers and one sister, who has been my friend for an awfully long time, stuffed together in a just-big-enough house.
Six brothers. One sister. Throw assorted children and wives and cousins and uncles and dogs into the fray, and there was a whole lot of ruckus in that house on Cleveland Street. I loved dipping a toe into it. I miss visiting that big, rambunctious house that was so different from the one I grew up in.
My parents' house was fairly quiet; my friend's house was always crammed with babies and cereal boxes and people hollering up and down the stairs and others crowded around the kitchen table. There was always something going on with this family.
And sometimes, emotions ran high. The family was close, but shot through with tensions. Some of the brothers grew distant, some stayed close.
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As the brothers and one sister grew up, they trickled away, one by one, until there was no one left. Then their parents moved away too, migrating a little south and a little east to be closer to their children.
Mark alone has moved back to the Iron Range -- Virginia, this time. He bought a fixer-upper not long ago, got remarried, and planned to work on the house as he could.
And then, bad luck. Mark was on a ladder, pushing a new window into place. You can guess part of what comes next: a slip, a fall, an injury. A shattered ankle thatwouldn't heal, blood vessels that refused to mend. Pain. Sadness. Acceptance. Crutches. A prosthetic foot.
And a house in Virginia that still needed fixing.
Well, at least that was something the family could tackle.
They all came back to the Range last weekend to help Mark with everything that needed to be done. Six brothers. One sister. Assorted children and wives and cousins and uncles and dogs; parents and a husband and one friend who thought it was the finest she had ever seen them all.
There were brothers on the ground passing lumber to brothers on the roof. They were shouting directions and friendly insults at one another, laying down new shingles and ignoring old wounds.
They kept working even as the sky darkened and the rain began. They pounded and sawed, hammered and measured and leveled. My friend used a nail gun for the first time in her life. The roof soon grew too wet to walk on, but the work didn't stop. The windows went in. Damaged siding came down and was replaced with new.
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My friend went out for more lumber and screws -- another first for her -- and Mark fetched more bundles of shingles.
And it was a very, very fine thing to see -- a family, all together, working side by side for someone they loved.
JANNA GOERDT covers the communities surrounding Duluth. She can be reached weekdays at (218) 279-5527 or by e-mail at jgoerdt@duluthnews.com .
