Cousin Address List

I had a ‘bee in my bonnet’ this morning. I was interested in gathering up the names and addresses of all my children and those children of my siblings to make a ‘Cousin’s Address List.’ Cousins were always important to me when I was young, so I thought that I would make it possible that my children would have the opportunity to communicate with cousins, if they chose to do so.

Back in the day, things were different. Families stayed together and didn’t move too far from the home place. Families were more nuclear and many things rotated around the family and everyone kept in touch. Cousins lived right around the corner from each other.

Now, jobs take us from one corner of the nation to another. It is now thought that we change professions three times in our life, so not only do we move to go where the jobs take us, but we re-educate and move some more. Thus, many of our family members are scattered. We have our lives so packed with our own needs and wants that we have very little time for family or extended family, especially if we need to travel long distances.

Thus, I called, e-mailed and visited my siblings and my husband’s siblings, and their offspring to find all the names, phone numbers, address and e-mails of all of their children, the cousins, on both sides of the family. That was a delightful exercise. I spoke to people that I had not spoken to in a long time. Not, that it was intended, but that I just had not taken the time to do so.

I am grateful now that I have those numbers. I found that three cousins all had babies within the last month. One cousin’s husband just graduated from university and two others just bought new homes. Congratulations are in order for these families with new ‘firsts’ in their lives. Is this a time to share more than just a quip on a web site? How about a real conversation?