A Tale of Two Cousins
Two cousins from two different families; one is my cousin and the other is just a relative I visited a few times in my childhood. One cousin is attached to me and is an incidental keeper of my stories, my life; the other knows my name and where I live. One cousin sent flowers to my mother’s funeral, and one cousin comforted me when my mother died. Cousins. Different forms of the same familial position and ten years ago I was awakened to the difference. This is the tale of two cousins.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of time…”
When someone mentions a cousin, I automatically think of someone’s sister’s aunt’s brother’s relative. Yup, it’s that complicated in my brain. I am not connected to my cousins; the people that are related to me through aunts and uncles. I don’t really know them, I have no real connection with them. Yes, I know who they are. I have spent time with them and even changed their diapers; but I don’t have history with them. Strangely enough, I met some cousins about ten years ago, and I have history with them. Our relationships are still in their infancy, but I have history with these cousins. So, how could I possibly have meaningful history with some cousins I only met a decade ago and not have history with cousins I’ve known my whole life? How you ask? Well, let me tell you.
“It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…”
I was born into a military family, and with that comes a myriad of situations that will impact you as you move through life; the most noticeable of which is moving. Wherever you are, you are home. You may have never been there, but it is now home. You will move constantly. Every 2-3 years you will pack up your life and head off on another adventure, and when you get there, you will be home. Now think about your family and how you’ve walked through life as a member of that family. Do you spend holidays at grandma’s house, summers at the family cabin, visits and dinners on Sundays? Those did not exist in my life. Yes, I had relationships with my grandparents and I did visit aunts and uncles in the summertime, but it was sporadic and based on geography. So you see, I’ve never really had cousins the way cousins often have each other, but that was about to change.
“It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
One day, I fell in love with a girl from the prairies and I travelled North to meet her family; enter the cousins. Cousin wife, little cousin, giant boy cousins, adult cousins, cousins to drink wth, cousin husbands, cousins doing yoga; all the cousins. There was a tidal wave of cousins crashing in on me and for the first time in my life I knew what it felt like to have actual cousins. All of the cousins were different, but they were clearly the keepers of each other’s stories, the custodians of their collective life together. I was in awe, I had never seen anything like it in my life and I suddenly realized what I had been missing by not having keepers and custodians in my life. I could see the inherent value in cousins, and I had never seen that before. It didn’t matter, they took me in and started adding my story to theirs. Suddenly, I had cousins; I had keepers for the parts of my life that I didn’t want to disappear.
So you see, if you ever read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cites, you will realize that it’s all about cousins. One of the premises of the story deals with family preservation and what we do to keep family connections strong. Basically it says, the only truth is who you are and what you do, and how that applies to the actions we take to keep family bonds strong. This is exactly what cousins do. Cousins willingly carry the weight involved in preserving the family bond; the family story. Thanks Cousins.