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Cousins never too far removed
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Since I began writing this column, no one has been more supportive, excited and encouraging than my many cousins. They have emailed me, left me comments, and spread the word through the "cousin hotline", which has been twittering since long before the website by that name and which, when it gets going, is one loud tweet.
I have so appreciated their support but I can't say I was surprised by it, and it got me to thinking about the family structure which surrounded me all of my life, and which is thankfully still intact. I don't know if it's a Jersey thing, or an Italian thing, or both. Maybe it's just a good thing. All I know is that I have nineteen first cousins, and cannot even count all of my second cousins. And though my immediate family wasn't large, many of my cousins were as close as you can get to a sibling while we were growing up.
We frequently shared Sunday visits in our grandmother's kitchen, and in our aunts' and uncles' homes; laughing, eating and yeah, sometimes fighting. We vacationed together, I stayed over at their houses, and they all came to my wedding. One memorable summer, my parents and I travelled through Europe with sixteen of our closest relatives. I'm not sure Italy has been the same since.
The majority of my cousins remain in New Jersey, so I don't get to see them as much as I did when I lived there. That is the difference between there and here, even though I have been blessed because most of my immediate family ended up in Arizona. And let me tell you, that's a big group all by itself. When we get together for holidays, birthdays or whatever, we number in the mid-twenties. My all time high was thirty-two for Thanksgiving dinner one year.
But I don't have my huge extended family near me and I miss them. Hearing about their get-togethers back east is still bittersweet for me. And my kids will never have that experience. They have six first cousins, half of them here and half in New Jersey. Though they see their Arizona cousins often, they see their New Jersey relations less so.
My children also have "cousins once removed" here in Arizona. It has always surprised me how few people know what that term means. In the complex family hierarchy I took for granted, I always knew that a cousin once removed was the child of one's first cousin, hence "removed" one branch on the family tree. Twice removed would be the grandchild of one's first cousin. Whereas second cousins are two people whose parents are first cousins. It's really very simple and logical and a great way to keep track of thousands of people.
My daughters didn't have much chance to get to know their second cousins because we moved away. I must admit we have second cousins even I don't know, though I was very close to several of mine as a kid. But the number is too large to know them all. At one point in New Jersey a new family moved in down the street from us and it took about a year before we realized we were related.
This may be unique to New Jersey, but it is not unique to me. My friend Carol, another Italian girl from New Jersey transplanted in Scottsdale, tells me often how close she is to her cousins, still talking to them frequently by phone and seeing them on her trips back there. She misses the way they would walk in and out of each other's unlocked houses without calling—or even knocking—first.
Though personally I am not a big fan of the pop in visit, I understand how she feels. On my wall hangs a framed picture, circa 1963, of all of the cousins on my mother's side gathered around our grandmother Carmella.
The bottom line is that the cousin relationship is a special one, perhaps because there is no sibling rivalry involved. Being one of the younger members of this particular community, I was doted on by the older kids and I adored them in return. And though the boys outnumbered the girls in this group, the female cousins closest to my age were like sisters to me, especially since I had none (though I now have two wonderful sisters-in-law).
All the memories I have of Louis (a/k/a Junior), Ida (a/k/a Sister), Robert, Dale, Ernie, Linda, Donna, Anthony, Frankie, Richie, Mark, Mitch, Yvonne, Chris, Janis, Gary, Carol, Betty Ann and Eddie, not to mention Nicole (actually a cousin once removed but an honorary first cousin) are priceless and ones I treasure.
Thanks, guys, for always being there for me!
Now pass me the macaroni, would ya?
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