When I was young and my mom would get me and my sisters ready to go to one of our family gatherings, I would always beg my mom to put a "scrunchie" in my hair. Why? Because Jaime always wore scrunchies. And when my mom let me pick out which shirt I was going to wear it would always be the purple one because purple was Jaime's favorite color and consequently my favorite color. I adored Jaime, along with all of my older cousins. My mother, the youngest of seven children, had me long after her older siblings had children. As a result, I was the youngest child in my generation of cousins, with my youngest first cousin being 11 years older than me. For most kids, this would make family gatherings insanely boring, as they wouldn't have anyone their age to play with. For me, it was the opposite, and I credit that to my amazing older cousins.
Though I love and appreciate all of my cousins, the three I was closest to growing up were my cousin Jaime (who is 20 years my senior) and my cousins Kate and Maggie (who are siblings and 15 and 13 years older than me, respectively). This is probably because they were the three cousins who babysat me and my siblings the most often. They were always there whenever my parents needed their help. In fact, when I was just a year old and both of my sisters were hospitalized suddenly, all three of them came to the rescue to take care of me. Jaime, who had just finished a four hour voyage to Cincinnati to see her older brother, immediately turned around to come back to Cleveland to be with me, sleeping on the floor next to my crib just to make sure I was okay throughout the night. Obviously, I was too young to remember this event, but whenever my mother would recount the tale to me through the years, I would always smile and feel the the luckiest kid in the world to have cousins who cared so much for me.
As I grew older, I continued to spend a great deal of time with my cousins and my relationships with them continued to grow. Jaime and Maggie both asked me and my sisters to be flower girls in their weddings. Jaime, who has an amazing singing voice, helped develop in me a love and appreciation for music. Maggie and Kate showed me and my sisters how to play several card games and board games that I continue to play with my friends today. Jaime, Maggie, and Kate loved spending time with us and often took us to the park or to see movies. We still laugh about the time we went to see "March of the Penguins," expecting a cute kids' movie and finding out after the two most boring hours of our lives that it was actually a very dry documentary.
Considering all of the wonderful things my cousins did for me, I could not have imagined loving and respecting anyone more than them. That was until they had children of their own. Today, Jaime and Maggie each have two daughters, and my relationships with them are very similar to the relationships I had with Jaime, Kate, and Maggie growing up. I babysit them, take them to the same park my older cousins used to take me, and I play games with them the same way my older cousins used to play with me. I want to be able to give them all of the awesome memories that I cherish from time spent with their parents. I hope that they can be flower girls in my wedding one, and who knows, maybe they'll eventually babysit for my kids and the cycle will continue. All I know for sure is that I am extremely lucky to have such a unique and beautiful relationship with the greatest cousins in the world.
