Cousins Day

Murray Cousins, Summer 1979 Lake Tahoe

Here in the 21st Century there seems to be a "National Day" for everything, from National Bubblewrap Day to National Star Wars Day to go along with the more traditional celebrations like Mother's Day and Father's Day. Somewhere along the line July 24 became declared National Cousins Day and as someone who is close with many of her cousins, I definitely think it's a day to be celebrated.

The picture at the top of this post is of me, my brother, and our Murray first cousins, taken one summer (about 1979 I think) at Lake Tahoe. It showed up in a collection of family photos that one of my cousins digitized after our uncle Eddie died in 2012. When I finally popped the CD into my computer to take a look at the pictures and see what was there, I saw this picture and sat and looked at it for a very long time. I'm guessing it's from Uncle Eddie's collection and probably one he carried with him as he traveled around the world while serving in the US Navy as a chaplain. I absolutely love it. This picture so totally captures my happiest childhood memories in one instant it takes my breath away.

I should note here that there are actually eight Murray cousins. The first six of us were born within five years of each other. The two youngest didn't come along for another fifteen years when the youngest of the first six were already in high school. I was in college. They're more like our nephew and niece than cousins -- at least in terms of childhood experiences. I feel kind of badly for the two youngest -- their experience of their cousins growing up are of more adults, not the childhood friends and playmates the rest of us had.

But back to this picture. While I don't remember it being taken, I do remember the summer vacation when it was taken. My mother's youngest sister and her husband owned a cabin near Lake Tahoe and would rent it to family during the summer. We had it in August -- I want to say it was for the entire month, but that seems too long (especially if it was 1979 which is the year my family moved from San Bruno to Millbrae.) It was longer than a week though. My mother's older sister and her family had the cabin before we arrived and we overlapped our stay by a couple of days. After they left, my aunt Diane and her kids came up. Uncle Eddie probably came with them also as I can't imagine Diane driving all the way up to Tahoe. They stayed with us for at least a week. My father's younger brother and his kids also came up, but just for a weekend. It was during this weekend that the picture was taken.

So I look at the six of us, aged 6 to almost 11, and we're just a bunch of goofy kids posing for a summer snapshot. I've got rabbit ears behind my head and am doing the same thing to Anne, Steven and John have their arms draped over each other's shoulders, Mary Elizabeth is hugging Marie* and we're all grinning ear to ear. It captures summer and childhood so amazingly well. It also captures the closeness among the six of us. Nearly 40 years have passed since this picture was taken and we all remain close. Sure, we don't see each other as often as we'd like (or even should) between jobs and families and the busy nature of our adult lives, but we're as tight knit as ever. I like to think of it as having 6 siblings with out some of the sibling rivalry that comes along with most actual siblings.

So, Happy Cousins Day to all my crazy cousins.

*When I started this blog, I decided not to name any living people, so all cousins names have been changed.

Seven of the eight Murray cousins, still having fun in 2017