written by Leona Bergstrom, Director, Re-Ignite
Reprinted from January 2016
Author’s note: I originally wrote this piece on the day of my aunt’s funeral. Since then, my cousins and I have shared in weddings, birthdays, funerals, babies, illnesses, transitions, and other challenging events. In light of the ups and downs of life, I’m writing this–well, just CUZ.
BOOMER COUSINS
We are children of a common grandmother. We share a bloodline, DNA, and heritage. We are cousins.
As little children, we played while the adults talked and ate. We discovered a lot of life together. I vividly recall my older cousins teaching me the “truth” about Santa, the tooth fairy and how babies are made. We climbed trees, played piano duets, laughed until it hurt, and periodically, we argued.
The process of growing up wasn’t easy. Some of us explored unhealthy life choices; some moved far away from home while others stayed close to 
parents and grandparents. We saw little of each other except on very special occasions or at a funeral. But our blood matches, so somewhere in our hearts, we always knew we could count on cousins to know us and love us.
This week I watched my daughter reunite with her closest cousin after being apart for quite some time. They didn’t miss a beat — talking, playing and giggling with childlike abandon. I was amazed at the strength of their bond. Timeless.
Today I found my cousin who slid out of our lives to pursue his own. (Thank you, Facebook.) Grandma would be pleased to see us reconnect.
Those in our generation known as the Baby-Boomers, say goodbye daily to the generation that brought us into this world. And, as we lose peers as well, we look around for anchors, pillars of stability, threads to hold us to the past. I’m finding my cousins to be that for me. Even though we haven’t spent much time together over the past decades, I know they understand a part of me that is known to no one else.
My cousins face the same difficulties as others in our generation – illness, divorce, death, a crisis of faith, financial despair. This week I will stand by my cousin and bury his mom, my aunt. We will cry as we honor the life of someone he knew intimately, and I from a distance. Our relationship as cousins will become stronger.
And, I suspect, we will look at our own grandchildren and hope and pray they will know the significance of their shared heritage.
They are cousins. Forever.
Copyright 2016 ChurchHealth
Photos courtesy of CanStock
Reprinted 2018
