Staying connected with cousins Staying connected with cousins (February 23, 2005)

By Kate Daly

Special to the Almanac

"Cousins by the dozens" is how Dad used to refer to his large family, with a laugh. And now that he's gone, it's more important to me than ever to reconnect with those cousins.

I have more than three-dozen first cousins on his side of the family, most of them women, which is why, I'm convinced, the group stays so in touch.

Every two years over the last decade, my 20 female first cousins have held a reunion in different parts of the country. The last one -- staged in October in Vail, Colorado, in the midst of aspen trees turning gold -- lured 14 of us, a surprisingly high turnout given everyone's personal situations.

Three cousins from the same family left their mother's bedside in Maryland to get a break from her bleak state. At 91, she drifts in and out of a semi-coma, and they wanted to join the land of the living for a brief weekend.

One cousin arrived wearing a back brace, popping painkillers so she could withstand the long plane ride from Florida. She wasn't going to let recent spinal stenosis and scoliosis surgery hold her back if her 90-year-old mother was willing to make the trip.

That aunt is the only one from her generation to make it. The fresh stitches behind her ear where she'd just had skin cancer cut out didn't slow her down at all.

Overall, this group of women is a hearty bunch, who opted to go hiking in the snowy mountains rather than shopping in the village. The age span covers more than 20 years, with most of the cousins in their 60s and with multiple grandchildren.

En route to the jeep mountain trek and horse back riding, talk turned to old stories, such as the time our uncle caught everyone skinny dipping, and lined up all the cousins for a punishment.

We bonded while creating new memories, and gossiping about the relatives who weren't there.

The younger cousin who recently left his wife and children for another woman got a lot of heat, but even more attention was paid to the conversations where we discovered common illnesses surfacing in branches of the family, ranging from melanoma to dyslexia and manic depression.

We shared family photos, noticing who has our grandmother's pointy nose or grandfather's sleepy eyes, and took a lot of pictures of ourselves simply getting together, eating meals in our borrowed condos, or going out to a restaurant.

I've been asked to sponsor the next reunion out here in California. I'm making a mental note to use paper plates and cut short on the cleanup.

But, what I really hope is that in a couple of years there are enough of us still around to mark the occasion, and that my only sister, who is undergoing cancer treatments, can come.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.