Family

Just got back from a week-long trip to North-Eastern Scotland where we spent some time with my aunt and uncle, cousins and grandfather. I also celebrated my 31st birthday, along with my aunt Rachel's 25th wedding anniversary, my second cousin Livs' 18th and various other bits and pieces that have occurred since our last family reunion.
We stayed at my aunt's house, in the valley of the Deveron, and despite the average temperature of 14C and changeable weather, it was gorgeous and I had a great time.
I spent some time getting to know my cousins a bit better. For a family dispersed quite widely we are remarkably close and seem to click back as if we'd hardly seen each other a week ago. It's especially important to me as I am the only child of two single parents, and I am also the oldest of my cousins by quite a stretch. My cousin Alex is 15, scary to think that when I was his age he was 1! Cat is almost 19, I find it hard to reconcile this grown-up with the Cat I remember who is about 3 years old in my head.
Hanging out with them and their equally grown-up friends made me feel old old old, yet somehow young, because we all seemed to be on the same wavelength. I'm still in the same funny place I always was - partly my mother's generation and partly my cousins'. I'm going to need the young ones as I get older and my parents get older too.
I was very lucky to have the best years of my grandparents, I spent a couple of years when I was very young living with them in a small village in Cornwall, the first 5 years of my life I was their only grandchild and they picked up where they left off with my aunt who was only 21 when I was born.  I am like the 5th child to them in many ways, and I grew up with not one parent but 6 if you count my aunt and uncles who were all big parts of my early years.
I visited my grandma in hospital. She's 89 and suffers from altzheimers. She is now almost totally bed-ridden. She can't see, and she can barely hear. It's just amazing that a person who was so frail in her childhood, living through severe illness and war, is physically still so strong. Yet her mind is gone. Is grandma still alive? Plainly so...but what of her soul? If I ever did (and I'm really not sure I did), I don't believe in souls anymore. Maybe a trace of her is still there: when I said "goodbye" a few times, she raised her hand as if to wave.

cousins united