When I was a young lad I had great times with my cousins. Particularly, I had great times with my “other brother” (as we lovingly referred to one another). While my family generally stayed in the same town, his moved from place to place all across the country. While we didn’t see each other very often (once a year would be a treat… maybe even just for a funeral) the times we spent together cemented our friendship well into adulthood. Even though he’s currently on another continent we’d pick back up in an instant through a simple text chat. The long and the short of it is that families are important. More than that, cousins of nearly the same age are equally important. Luckily, our son recently got to move back into the same town his only (at the moment) cousin lives in. Good times were bound to take place.
So it came to pass that during our first week back in town, amidst the chaos of unpacked boxes strewn across the floor in a disorganized fashion, that we headed over to spend some time with his cousin. We got the cousins together. We got the “other brothers” in the same physical location for a while. Boy did they have fun. As my sister-in-law noted, he’s normally a little riled up with other kids around, but not like this! They ran and ran, screamed and screamed, laughed and laughed, and followed each other around the house in a game that no one understood or could devise rules to. They knew something special was happening. I have no idea how they knew, but they did. They knew that this wasn’t like playing with the neighbor kids. This wasn’t just meeting another small human at the park, this was something special. As our time in town continues, I look forward to getting these two together more often.