COMMENTARY: You don’t have to be a cousin

I never even knew there was such a thing until then. But it seemed as if all of my classmates spent Sunday afternoons visiting aunts and uncles and first cousins. I did have aunts and uncles, which I learned were necessary to have first cousins. But none of them had children. None of them even lived near us.

So, until that time I had no idea I was deprived of cousins. And I began to feel terribly left out. Sure, we spent Sunday afternoons with my grandparents, but then, they didn’t have children our age, so we mainly got to do things that didn’t require any work or the use of scissors.

For some reason, my grandmother thought it was a sin to use scissors on Sunday. Since she made all the dresses my sister and I wore until we were 11-12 years old, I guess, to her, that was work. To illustrate the strictness of her rule, the Sunday newspaper had paper dolls and clothes for them in the comic section every week. We weren’t even allowed to cut those out of the paper until Monday.

But, back to cousins, I was so happy when I finally learned that a first cousin had arrived. It didn’t matter that we weren’t near enough to visit. At least I could TALK ABOUT my cousin.

However, nearer home, my dad had first cousins we also regularly visited on Sunday afternoon, and one of them had children several years younger than my sister, brother and me. So, we just counted their children as OUR first cousins.

On the Sundays when we visited them, we had a great time playing outdoor games. I particularly remember the one called “Ain’t no boogers out tonight.” That referred to a boogie man, who was supposedly a scary person. I’ll take their word for it, because fortunately, we never saw one when we played that.

But one person was “It” and had to hide. The others sat on the steps with their eyes closed and counted to some magic number — say 25. So, when we got to that number, we all had to leave the steps and sing a little song, “Ain’t no boogers out tonight; grandpa killed them all last night” over and over.

I am sure psychiatrists all over the world are wondering how we survived such a game, but it was not nearly like horror movies that people watch today. Anyway, “It” had to come out of the bushes or wherever he/she had hidden and try to catch one of the children before we made it back safely to the steps.

If someone WAS caught, he/she became “It” for the next game. (Keep in mind this game was usually played in the twilight part of the evening.) Hmmmmm. Thinking about that, maybe that’s why I am not fond of darkness one bit. The psychiatrists might be right after all.

ANYWAY, we had much fun playing with my dad’s first cousin’s children and counting those children as our first cousins. There was no cousin-police to tell us that we were wrong. Well, it turns out that one of those cousins and I remained in the community we grew up in and had our own families here. This particular cousin and I became very close friends, which meant there was a double-bond — the family bond and the friendship bond. Both of our fathers were LANCASTERS.

So sharing the same last name counted for a lot. Knowing each other’s ancestors can also play a large role in how close you feel to one another. Plus, when you count someone as a cousin, they are really special. My friend and I were like that. When either one of us had any sort of community project we were in charge of, we were certain to involve the other in being sure it was done correctly.

She and I always said that our “Lancaster Blood” just made us want to do things the best way possible. Both of us quickly learned that my husband, Charlie, was the best proof-reader ever. We both knew what we had intended for our work to say, but so often we skimmed right over a typo.

Not Charlie. He could make red circles all over our papers if we used “if” instead of “in” or some other common typographical mistakes. He read many things which he had absolutely no interest in at all. Sure, he probably learned a lot, but he said he could have just as well done without knowing some of it.

My cousin-friend and I could talk for a long time whenever we were on the phone with one another. Often, when Charlie realized I had been talking for quite a while, he would get a cardboard fan and stand in front of me, while whispering that he was just trying to keep the phone from overheating. He could tell by the conversation who I was talking with. And he knew not to try to interrupt us. We would be through talking when we finished whatever we needed to say to one another. That was how important we were in each other’s lives.

Recently, my cousin-friend died unexpectedly. On one Sunday, she went to take care of her two great-granddaughters for two days. She came back home Tuesday night, and before the next Sunday rolled around, she had health issues that took her life away. So, those of you who have double bonds with someone — a family bond and a friendship bond — know the hole that leaves.

I was absolutely amazed when a young girl, who has been sitting beside me in church for several years, told me this on Sunday — when she realized how sad I was, she said, “The hole in your heart is going to be filled up by the people here who love you.” That was from a 12-year-old.

I have let that become my daily encouragement — because the people in our community do have so much love for neighbors and friends. You don’t even have to be a cousin. As I lean on her words, I am going to also try to be sure that I help others fill the holes in their hearts. That’s what my cousin would have done. And I hope that’s what you also will try to do on a daily basis.