Mirror Cousins

I have a set of cousins I like to think of as my “mirror” cousins. As I’ve said before, I am the oldest of four children with two younger brothers and a baby sister. My cousins are three brothers and a baby sister also. They are also preacher’s kids. This fact has its good and not so good points.

It’s very easy to drawn comparisons between the cousins. I will start with the youngest. This baby sister is my age. Her brothers are about a year apart in age and she is about a year younger than the youngest brother. (The actual ages are not mentioned to protect any age hang-ups known or unknown.) This cousin in my mind is the mirror of my baby sister. She was sheltered and protected in the same manner by both parents and brothers. For some reason, she and I didn’t play together very often as you might expect, but I have one pleasant memory of interaction with her.

This was at our grandparents’ house, which was the setting for most of the events between the cousins. She and I were in the back yard alone together. I remember we began a game of pretend where she called the shots. I was the prince and she was Sleeping Beauty. I was a little uneasy with this, because I knew that the prince had to kiss Sleeping Beauty to wake her. I asked her if I was supposed to kiss her.

Looking in her eyes, I could almost see the gears turning. Did I detect some uneasiness in her as well? I also sensed that she knew I was nervous. The haziness of thought seemed to clear from her eyes and she spoke to me.

I was ready for the worst. I think we were ten or eleven, but I can’t be sure, but I was willing to kiss her if she insisted. She was my cousin after all, and in my family this kind of thing wasn’t that uncommon.

To my relief, (and maybe some slight disappointment) she told me I should kiss her hand to wake her.

We ran through the game, and I found she was quite a good actress.

Now I will talk about the youngest boy. This cousin, I usually interacted with along with his brothers. I have one strong memory of just the two of us.

It was at his Bible camp. I was put in his cabin as I was allowed to attend for free because my mom was teaching the younger kids. Here I was, thrust into my cousin’s world like the new kid at school. He was the defacto leader of his group of friends, and he introduced me with an aside that I would be good for the Bible quiz when the cabins competed throughout the week.

I felt that he thought I was some kind of sissy liability he had to tolerate. I was determined to make my own mark at his camp and show them all I was more than the geeky Bible wiz kid. Oh, I’ll hand them the Bible quiz victory, but I was determined to do a bit more.

In the middle of that week, I had read the chapters to be covered in the Bible quiz and came into the chapel ready. We were supposed to discuss each question given to our cabin before standing up to answer, but whenever our cabin received a question, I was standing while the rest of the cabin were still discussing. I knew the answers and won the Bible quiz for my cabin.

At the end of the week, there was a relay race. There were all kinds of wacky tasks to do with the baton run between each one. I begged the counselor to allow me to be the baton runner. I knew I could do a good job because another cousin of mine had started me into running a mile a day. I found I enjoyed running. Because I was persistent, I was made the baton runner although everyone in my cabin had doubts about me.

My cousin was always the model of cool for his friends, so I was curious to see what part of the relay he would claim for his own. He picked the task of chugging a whole can of soda and burping before the baton could be carried to the next task. I wasn’t impressed.

I brought the baton to the finish line to capture first place for my cabin. I was elated. I tried to tell my cousin that maybe I was good for something besides just the Bible quiz, but he didn’t get it.

I had accomplished something I had set out to do and was glad to have done it for myself at least.

The second oldest cousin can easily be compared to Bold One, my brother. He was the bold one of that immediate family. He tended to treat me like a little brother with all that entails. I felt a little condescended to and when I objected, I was knocked down. I didn’t have as much interaction with him as the rest, but I don’t remember ever breaking my “little brother” role with him.

Now the oldest cousin I identify with because he’s the oldest of four and I am too. He and I have successfully maintained a good relationship through the years. He has given me a timely word of wisdom on more than one occasion, and I hope I can do the same for him. He has influenced me in many ways, but the fact that I am writing at all, I attribute to his input.

I had the chance to see him again when he brought one of his daughters to the city where I live for college. I was so glad to see him and feel we can pick up right where we left off whenever we see each other again. I gave him such a hard time when he was tripping over sending his first daughter to live away from home at college. I began to feel bad when his wife told me this, but the visit renewed our relationship.

Now we seem to keep more in touch with each other. I haven’t talked to the other three cousins since my father’s funeral. I’m sure we all pray it won’t take another funeral to get together again.