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Post by htmb on Apr 16, 2013 20:38:22 GMT
In a sad personal coincidence, since I had just mentioned in bixa's "The Mostest" thread that I had 28 first cousins, one of my oldest cousins died yesterday. He was the first of my cousins to go (though my brother and sister were the first deaths of our cousin group). He had been sick for many years with mostly musculoskeletal problems, but had a lot of courage and fought through severe day-to-day pain up until the end. In recent years he shone as a terrific father and a devoted son to his mother, my favorite aunt (mentioned by me in other threads).
My cousin was just a couple of years older than me, and when we were children we spent many hours playing together, fishing off piers, going on wild explorations, and teasing our younger siblings unmercifully. As kids, we really had a strong bond, but his path went in a different direction from mine. The most obvious changes were evident to me once my cousin returned from Vietnam and South Korea. It was the early '70's and he seemed to have spent much of his time in Asia heavily sampling whatever drugs and alcohol he could access. He had also become a heavy smoker; a habit he would never break and which mostly contributed to his final cause of death. One of my most recent memories is of him vacuuming his mother's little apartment with a cigarette in his mouth while she sat patiently nearby hooked up to her oxygen tank. (Scared me half to death!)
My cousin, his two sisters, my brother, sister and I shared a lot of memories together. Our fathers, brothers just a year apart in age, and our mothers, best friends since the age of three, were inseparable for many years. Though we more or less went our separate ways later, we could always pick up where we left off at the drop of a hat. As each of my immediate family members became ill and died, my cousins were there to comfort and support me. Now it seems to be their turn, with first my aunt and now her son. It's very sad, but what wonderful memories we shared!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2013 21:24:41 GMT
I just spent a half hour writing atrocities about my cousins (to show that not all cousins are nice) and then when I tried to post it, I got a 'server too busy' message and everything was erased. So the Good Cousin Fairy is definitely watching over us.
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Post by htmb on Apr 16, 2013 21:34:53 GMT
Oh well, Kerouac, feel free to write your horrors again later. My cousin certainly wasn't perfect, but I will miss him. I also have a lot of cousins I barely know, mainly due to my being a part of the "older" cousins group. Some of my cousins are certifiable, some are mean as snakes, and others are very nice, sweet and decent people. Some treated me just like I was one of them, while others never hesitated to point out that I was adopted, so "not really one of the favored grandchildren." The core group of us older cousins on the paternal side, born between 1949 and 1955, grew up almost like siblings. We have a common bond and an understanding of the demons that pursued our fathers and the crazy, mixed up world of our childhood days.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 17, 2013 16:15:43 GMT
Htmb, we have no way of knowing what will be added to this thread over time, but your two posts so far constitute a brief but perfect essay on your particular family, plus a lovingly objective look at families and the humans within them.
You have mentioned your little sister before, but how dreadful to hear that you also lost a brother -- a shocking amount of sadness in one family.
How many of you are there in the core group of older cousins?
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Post by rikita on Apr 17, 2013 21:36:22 GMT
sorry about your cousin, htmb... but it is good that you have a lot of nice memories of him...
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Post by htmb on Apr 17, 2013 22:35:48 GMT
Bixa, there were seven children in my father's family: three older boys, a sister, and three younger boys. My father was the second of the three oldest boys who were all very close in age. They went to school together, joined the military and served in WWII, then got married and had children about the same time.
The seven children of the three older boys form the older group of cousins. Of that group, I was born fourth, but was the oldest among my siblings.
I doubt I've mentioned my brother here before. He died a few years ago at the age of fifty.
Thank you, rikita.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2013 20:04:19 GMT
The star cousins were not in my family, but in my aunt's husband's family -- one of his sisters had 18 children.
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Post by htmb on Apr 20, 2013 23:58:27 GMT
My cousin didn't want a traditional funeral, but wished there to be a big party instead. His immediate family is planning a celebration with relatives and friends at one of the beach houses where we used to hang out as kids. Bathing suits, beer, and barbeque are sure to be on the agenda.
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Post by nautiker on Apr 21, 2013 14:56:34 GMT
hi htmb, sorry to read these bad news, let the good memories prevail... - a beach party certainly sounds unusual, however looks like a swell idea to me!
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Post by htmb on Apr 21, 2013 15:17:09 GMT
Thank you, Nautiker. I suppose, with these particular cousins, it will be most appropriate. Now I have to figure out if I will be able to attend the memorial since the event will be held about a four hour drive away from my home. This time of year it is very hard for me to get away, even for short periods of time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 21, 2013 15:47:30 GMT
So many people say they'd like a party instead of a traditional memorial service. I've been to some of those & really, they're usually cocktail parties with people occasionally remembering to be solemn. Your cousin's memorial gathering, however, sounds as though it will be the joyful remembrance he envisioned -- something for everyone, that itself will be remembered. I hope you get to go.
Thank you for reply earlier, on the configuration of family ages, etc. I can't help but think your groups would make a great Maeve Binchy novel, at the very least!
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Post by htmb on Apr 21, 2013 18:01:57 GMT
More like a Pat Conroy book, Bixa. Beach Music with a bit of Spanish/Italian flavor in the mix.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 27, 2013 14:48:07 GMT
I am sure you all are MUCH nicer than that!
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Post by htmb on Apr 27, 2013 14:55:31 GMT
No, not really. Not on my maternal side of the family anyway. They're a pretty mean, selfish lot.
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Post by htmb on Apr 27, 2013 15:12:55 GMT
I once met a second cousin while I was walking down Bourbon Street on New Years Eve in New Orleans. Someone up on a balcony called down to me and introduced himself as my cousin "B." I had heard of B, but he lived in a different part of Florida and we had never met. He was the son of one of my mother's uncles. The uncle, who was a first class rogue on many levels, had a completely separate family in a different town from his primary family. When the uncle died, my father, who had known all of them through business, spent much of the funeral introducing half-siblings to each other. The uncle had even named two sons, one in each family group, after himself, so B also has a half-brother named B.
Confused yet?
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Post by htmb on Apr 27, 2013 16:19:20 GMT
Continuing with the same side of the family....
My maternal grandfather was the youngest of five. There was the aforementioned rogue brother, who I never met, and three sisters. The family was distantly related to a famous civil war hero and came from Alabama/Georgia (their house supposedly sat on the state line) by way of Virgiania. I don't know much of their history, but believe they were white trash farmers who worked hard and did well after they settled in the Tampa area.
When my hard living very dashing grandfather married my Smith College educated grandmother (@1918), his sisters were very upset. However, they stopped speaking to my mother when, after WWII, she eloped and married my Catholic father from the "other side of the tracks."
Side note: There was a lot of prejudice against Catholics then, and my paternal grandfather's family had also disowned him when he married my half Spanish, very Catholic, maternal grandmother.
Back to the maternal side: I don't recall ever meeting my three great aunts until right before my marriage to an Episcopalean. They had ignored my mother for thirty years, and suddenly became minimally involved in her life again.
My brother and I, who were both adopted as newborns, but from different backgrounds (adoption was another "no no" in the family) used to have a running joke about all the reasons to be thankful we weren't of the same bloodlines as the rest of the family. We dodged a lot: mental illness, alcoholism, a hereditary type of blood disease, just to mention a few. All that from my maternal grandfather.
My maternal cousins have had a lot to deal with and inherited many of my grandfather's negative traits. Some of them are very nice people; others not so nice at all. I'm the oldest of this group, but don't feel the closeness I feel with my father's family.
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Post by mich64 on Apr 27, 2013 17:51:04 GMT
Sorry to read about the passing of one of your favorite cousins htmb. I have a few cousins that are just like sisters to me and many that I have such fond memories of from my childhood and stay in contact with through Facebook.
My maternal cousins all but one, live on the east coast of the country where the family originates. Those cousins were a large part of my life until the age of 7. My father being military, was transferred to Ontario where we then spent many summer and Christmas vacations with my paternal cousins. I have 4 maternal cousins (mom only has one sister) and 20 paternal (dad has 6 brothers/sisters).
We would always spend the last two weeks of summer visiting my fathers family where we would be split up between the aunts and uncles. That arrangement formed a very strong bond between myself and one of my aunts and her 3 children, to this day.
Recently one of these cousins had been hospitalized (finally released this week) for almost 3 months as she had meningitis and from the fever suffered a stroke. Her sister and I e-mailed each other daily for updates and support as my aunt and uncle went to Newfoundland to help their son-in-law with her 3 children at home.
I remember as a child my siblings and I feeling like outsiders when we visited and was a little envious of the bonds the 20 of them had (all living in the same area and seeing so much of each other) but as I grew older and matured, I found I indeed had very strong bonds with the ones I chose too without feeling guilty for those I chose not too.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2013 18:12:34 GMT
Htmb, I'm pretty sure that quite a bit of my family was as trashy as yours. I have hoped all of my life that my paternal bloodline is extremely thin and that most of my blood comes from the maternal side. I see fragments of the other bloodline in my brother, and it does not please me.
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Post by htmb on Apr 27, 2013 21:24:14 GMT
Kerouac, I think by now you would know if you take after your mother's side of the family, but you are bound to have inherited a few quirks from your father, too.
Don't get me wrong. Many of my maternal cousins are very nice, respectable people. The others appear to be respectable on the surface, but they are mean and selfish to the core. They dress well, are educated, make decent wages, have nice houses, and pay their bills on time. But scratch the surface and you will see they aren't very kind people.
I can remember standing in my aunt's kitchen when I was little and looking on in horror as my little stair-step cousins ran throughout the house screaming like animals. One day, when that particular group had moved into a two story house (they'd grown to seven or eight children at that point) the baby crib went flying down the stairs after the boys wheeled it into the hallway and gave it a big shove. Thank goodness the baby was not in the crib at the time.
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Post by htmb on Apr 27, 2013 21:27:37 GMT
Mich, I'm very glad your cousin is getting better. What a worrisome time for your family. It's good you have been able to stay in touch. It's great you have those wonderful childhood visits to fondly remember.
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Post by mich64 on Apr 27, 2013 23:40:01 GMT
My goodness htmb! That must of have been horrible to witness, did you know as the crib was hurled down the stairs that the baby was not in it or was it not until afterwards? That certainly would have left an impression on you.
While reading that account it brought back scary memories of when I watched a movie named The God Son, to think there are actually such bad little kids out there. Sometimes I think I have lived a sheltered life. Only recently can I say that I have known a truly evil person, realizing her actions shocked me, thank goodness she is not related to me, although she almost became an in-law!
While I have known of an aunt and an uncle who displayed some bad behaviour when my grandparents passed away, besides that, my extended family has been kind and supportive.
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Post by htmb on Apr 28, 2013 0:18:48 GMT
It was only afterwards that I realized the baby was downstairs with my aunt.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 28, 2013 2:37:55 GMT
Interesting about your getting to know the extended family despite being a military kid, Mich, because of spending summers with them. I and the brother closest in age to me used to love going to my maternal grandparents for the summer. There weren't many cousins living in the same town, but some second cousins (sons of a 1st cousin of my mother) were our ages. We never really got to know my dad's side of the family very much. He was an only child & his parents were both dead, which is probably why. We did go to a long weekend family reunion on that side, with 2nd cousins in our age group. They lived on a farm, so we got to do all that jumping from the hayloft fun stuff. The most extended contact I had with cousins was pure coincidence. When my dad got sent to Madrid, we stopped off to see his aunts & uncles in the Boston area & found out that one of his cousins, who had married a man from South Africa, was also stationed in Madrid, as her husband was in the diplomatic corps. They had three kids -- the older boy & girl were the same ages as my brother & I, so we got to play with them for three years. Well, I'm just rabbiting on because I don't have any good reprobate cousin stories. Yours are great, Htmb -- they need to be cast with Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and that ilk! There's a discussion in blah blah blah about what to call cousins who are much older. One of the great friends of my life was my cousin Buddy, who was seven months younger than my mother. I always called him by his first name -- indeed, called all of the cousins in my mother's age group by theirs, as well. Here is Buddy the summer he was 16 & my mother turned 17. He's the boy in the back & she's the beauty in the checked sunsuit ~~
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Post by htmb on Apr 28, 2013 3:54:55 GMT
How wonderful to be with your cousins in Madrid, Bixa!
I love the photo of your beautiful mother and cousin Buddy.
For several years in a row my aunt and mother would pack up the kids and spend the summer at the beach. Our fathers would leave for work on Monday morning and return on Friday night. Our dads both loved to barbeque, so much of the weekend would be spent cooking ribs, chicken, and mullet on their custom made barbeque pits (made out of oil drums). The food was always fantastic.
My cousin, the one who just died, and I would go on little adventures and I remember getting dropped off at a little bridge one day so we could fish for who knows what. I think I even had my own rod and reel. I don't remember catching anything, but I do remember getting tired of fishing and trying to walk back to the beach house which was at least five miles away. I was wearing these little grass sandals - possibly made out of palmetto reeds - and after the first mile those things just fell apart. It's been a long time, but I still remember how hot and rough that road was on my poor feet.
There were limited places to find a phone. The beach area was completely undeveloped and we had one of the few houses there. We finally got to a little bait shack where we could call our parents to come pick us up. By the time we got to the house we were so hungry my cousin and I picked clean a whole mullet that had just come off the grill.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 29, 2013 15:20:43 GMT
Htmb, the beach stories must be a source of happy memories for all of you, forever. Probably not too many mid-century American kids who have stories about walking miles in rustic shoes. Did you use that story on your kids a la the miles-to-school-in-the-snow variety? I know about Florida smoked mullet, but never knew it could be grilled. Stands to reason, though. Yes, I'll bet that food was fantastic. Was this a beach in the Tampa area?
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Post by htmb on Apr 29, 2013 20:44:18 GMT
Actually, it was just a bit north from Kimby's beach area.
I think the mullet was smoked off to the side of the grill.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2013 21:03:35 GMT
I only ever ate deep fried mullet.
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Post by htmb on Apr 30, 2013 23:56:25 GMT
My uncles were pretty good at grilling and smoking meat/fish, but my father was the real pro. He would spend hours fixing the most delicious barbequed chicken and ribs I have ever tasted. I only remember him cooking smoked mullet at the beach, and then the mullet had just been caught. Fantastic!
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Post by htmb on May 19, 2013 16:16:48 GMT
I did attend my cousin's memorial celebration. It was a pleasant, relaxed gathering of family and friends. It was good to catch up with my aunts and to visit with my cousins. I believe the celebration was exactly what my cousin had envisioned, and think it would have made him happy. It's strange to see how everyone has aged when, of course, I haven't changed a bit.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 19, 2013 17:27:36 GMT
Oh, it's great to hear that the celebration was so pleasant & successful.
Bummer for your cousins, though, having to squelch their envy of your unchanging youthful beauty.
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