When I was growing up, when someone would ask about my family and ask how many cousins I have, I'd have to catch myself when I started to say five and change it to seven. For most people, it's probably easy to remember how many cousins they have. But my family was close to my mother's side of the family and pretty much didn't have anything to do with my father's side of the family (his father died before I was born and my grandmother died when I was 7), so I frequently forgot I had two other cousins from my dad's side.
I don't know why we didn't do much with my father's brother's family. Maybe they had some lingering sibling rivalry issues, since my dad and his brother are only 16 months apart. I know my father always felt a bit like the slighted second son. Maybe the families just didn't like each other. I know that we saw each other infrequently at best before my mom died, and after she died we didn't really see each other at all. My father used to talk to his brother on the phone maybe once or twice a month, so I occasionally talked to my uncle, but I never saw or spoke to my cousins.
For a long time this didn't bother me. My next closest cousin on both sides of the family is eight years younger than I am, and growing up I didn't really feel like we had a lot in common. How could we? They were in elementary school when I was in high school. I babysat for some of my cousins on my mom's side, but that was more of the role we had - I was older, into other stuff. As we aged, though, and gained a more similar perspective in life, I was able to cultivate a closer relationship to my cousins. As they have gone to college, married, and had children of their own, I've really begun to cherish our friendships, made deeper by our shared family history.
As I developed those deeper friendships with my cousins on my mother's side, I thought often of my cousins on the other side, and wondered where they were, what they were doing, what paths their lives had taken. I often wanted to contact them, but I couldn't do that without going through my father, and that would have entailed delving into his issues in a way that I didn't want to get into. He can have his issues, fine, but I wanted the respect of being able to form my own opinions free of his bias, and that wouldn't have happened.
I saw the younger of my cousins on my father's side at my wedding 15 years ago, but she was still in high school then, and we didn't stay connected after the wedding. I continued to wonder about her and her sister though.
This past October, my sister got married. And I have no idea why, but I was completely flummoxed when my uncle and aunt walked up to the house (the wedding was outside), followed by both of my cousins and their significant others. I guess I always assumed that since my sister lived with my father she was privy to and subscribed to his particular issues regarding his brother and his family. I got to see both of my cousins, both of whom have grown into beautiful (seriously, they're hot - this frumpy old lady is quite jealous), smart, capable women. I got to see my aunt and uncle and cousins and interact with them on my own terms, sit with them and have my own conversations and get to know them myself. And it was wonderful. They are warm, kind, wonderful people.
I exchanged a few emails with my cousins, and they have now learned just how terrible I am about returning emails. But I recently joined Facebook (I'm continuing to rail against them, but from within the system - I got on to find an ex of my husband's, but that's another story entirely) and both of them are on it, and I friended both of them. I'm looking forward to attending the wedding of one of them in the spring, and to cultivating relationships with them like I have with my other cousins. I didn't really expect to get any gifts at my sister's wedding, but in my cousins I have.
Seriously, look, aren't they gorgeous?
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