My cousin Kathy and her husband Gary visited us last week. It was both a wonderful and revealing experience. By that I mean, I learned so much about them and – in the process – also learned about our extended family dynamics.
Kathy and I are first cousins; in this case, our mothers were sisters. My mother is deceased, while Kathy’s is faring fine. That said, I see family genes at work.
For instance, Kathy and I are both analytical and verbal, and I suspect our mutual ancestors somewhere along the way were too. Which possibly accounts for our dissecting various topics without hesitation, even though we’d never spent a week alone together before. Words helped bring us together. In addition, we’re both organized and detail-oriented. We also like intellectual humor.
These are great things to know, since our personal lives have run on perpendicular planes. I’ve been married twice and currently live with a man who’s ten years my senior. Kathy married for the first time in her late thirties; and her husband is also about ten years her senior. Given the similarity of our mates’ ages, there’s a commonality here about fears for the future; and it bodes well for keeping in touch.
We spent the week visiting various sights around the area where we live and then jaunting to Springfield, Illinois to learn about our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. Along the way, we learned about each other as well.
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