Background: I’m adopted, and because both my birth mother and birth father had tons of offspring, I have about a zillion bio-relatives. Loooooonnnnggg story short, I am slightly in touch with a few of them, and it’s fine. But except for one half-sister, they are not a significant part of my life: I did not grow up with them, I have never met most of them, and at best have exchanged an email or two or a couple of phone calls with some of them. The one bio half-sister I do know well is great and I am thankful for her, but she lives thousands of miles away so we very rarely see each other.
Moving on to my adoptive family: I consider them to be my “real” family, for both historical and legal reasons. I was an only child and both my parents were not close to their families. My father was an only child estranged from his father, mother, and stepmother; for him, there were no other relatives to speak of. So, zero family there.
My mother was the youngest of five kids, but her family wasn’t close at all and I virtually never saw my aunts and uncles. I have a ton of cousins, not sure exactly how many, but thanks to the fact I never had much contact with most of them while growing up, I am only in touch with two of them.
One of these two cousins is a sweetie. She lives thousands of miles away so I never see her; we just exchange emails. She’s a staunch Democrat, horrified at what is happening.
That brings us to The Other Cousin. He’s not super Trumpy, but yes - I think it is safe to assume he voted for Trump.
About this cousin: like me, it is pretty clear he feels at least a little wistful about not having much of an extended family. (I asked him once, “it is embarrassing that I have to ask, but how many cousins do we have?” He did not know either.) His parents and his older brother were highly accomplished intellectuals. He was treated as the dumb kid in the family. My mother reported that his father (her brother-in-law, married to her sister) once said to her, “Why did I have to have a stupid kid?”
This “stupid kid” used to go visit my mother from time to time, even though they had little in common (political rifts were clear decades ago), because he knew it meant a lot to her and he appreciated the fact she was eternally pissed at his parents for looking down on him.
This “stupid kid” visited my mother while my father was dying and she was totally fucking insane (a combination of her generally negative attitude toward the world, stress of my father’s condition, plus she was taking steroids for pneumonia which turned totally fucking insane into TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE!!!). He listened patiently while she told him that he was a shitty person, his father was shitty person, I was a shitty person, etc. etc.
This “stupid” cousin was on a cross-country road trip, en route to Canada I think, in upstate New York or some such place, with his wife when my mother died in Iowa. He turned around and drove back to see me.
When I held a “celebration of life” for my mother a few months later, in the middle of winter, he and his wife came. We had dinner and lots of wine afterward, sharing hithero untold tales of how difficult it was to maintain a relationship with my mother.
By random chance, he now also lives part time on Hawai’i Island, on opposite sides of the island. We see each other from time to time, staying overnight at each other’s homes.
When I was driving us home from lava-watching late at night in the rain, a cat jumped out into the road and I struck it, the first words out of his mouth were, within seconds, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Did I mention cats? He and his wife are incredible cat-lovers.
Did I mention differing political views? Yes - we try to laugh about how amazing it is that in this divided world, we can still be connected. We commiserate with the weaknesses/mistakes that “the other side” makes; he tells me where he disagrees with Trump and I tell him where I disagree with the Dems.
I have so little family in this world. He’s my cousin, he’s been so loyal to me whenever I (or my mother) needed him, and I’m thrilled that we both live on Hawai’i Island.
Fuck you if you think I’m morally wrong for having him and his wife over for Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to seeing him again.
