Keeping Up with the Cousins

I never cared about keeping up with the Joneses. But to give the phrase a different meeting, I am interested in keeping up with the Page cousins. In other words, I want to keep alive the connection that we re-established at funerals when my father and his siblings started dying.

Two summers ago, we all met at my cousin Gail’s house in North Carolina less than two months before Hurricane Florence hit it. Then last fall some of the cousins came to our area and spent a couple of days each with my younger brother and me. My older brother, Donald, wasn’t able to make that one because he was already deep in the throes of Parkinson’s Disease and dementia.

So it seemed fitting to include him one last time and have this year’s mini-reunion at his interment in Michigan. His ashes were buried in the family plot, which includes my parents’ and grandparents’ graves. The Michigan location also made sense because several of my cousins live in the area. Two came from the East Coast, but the other three (also on the East Coast) couldn’t make it. That’s why I call it a mini-reunion.

Roland and I started the trip by meeting one of his Navy buddies and wife at a restaurant in Paw Paw, Michigan. After a good visit with them, we went on to my cousin Ann’s house near Kalamazoo. The storm rolled through while we were there but had calmed down before we left for our hotel.

Everywhere we went there were reminders of the pandemic. Even small children were wearing masks at the rest stops. The hotel required masks in the public areas and had attached a paper seal to the door indicating that the room had been sanitized. The included breakfast had fewer choices than usual, but there was enough of it to fill us up as we ate in our room.

Tuesday was a nice day. The cemetary at Fruitport was a little farther north than Ann’s house, so I don’t know if it had rained there at all, but the ground by the grave was dry. Afterwards, we had a meal at the clubhouse in my cousin Lawrence’s complex, then drove on home.

The photo shows the cousins in our masks just before Donald’s interment service. It may be hard to tell, but even Donald is wearing one over the urn. He would have appreciated the humor.

Although the picture shows only the blood cousins, the gatherings included spouses and several people from the next generation. The Covid-19 precautions created some logistical difficulties, but it was a great visit anyway.

And keeping up with the cousins was just what the doctor prescribed for our mental health.