Uncle Paul

I just got an email from my uncle tonight informing me that my couse Kelley is graduating from high school. Thanks to the internet, he was able to attach a sample of Kelley's poetry and writings to impress the recipients. The biggest problem is, for an 18 year old girl, she is damn good. For me, that's a great problem to have.

For me, the greatest tradgedy is that I do not know my younger cousins the way I should. I grew up going to my grandparent's house at least once a week with the rest of the family. My dad was one of 8 kids and one of the oldest, so the older group of cousins was realy tight. I felt I had an incredible family life growing up, in spite of the fact that my parents did not come to my softball games, my cheerleading, those kinds of things.

I realized at some point that I have no concept of who my younger cousins are. I never saw them enough and I never had an adult to teach me how to interact with such young kids. I know how now that I've had children. Evidentally I know how to interact with them really well as lots of friends and acquaitances children flock to me as though I was Mother Goose. But I feel like a failure in the cousins department because I truly do not know my younger cousins to this day.

Yes, I live on the West Coast. But even when I lived on the East Coast I did not see nor interact with them. I had a great relationship with all of my ex's nieces and nephews, it was actually painful to not see them and still shocks me because they are so grown up and I have no clue.

At any rate, my Uncle Paul, who is a great guy and has overcome more mountains than anyone I know, deserves to have a niece, a goddaughter, who knows his girls and pays attention to them. I have neglected them and I am not so sure how one can make up for that these days.

Any suggestions are more than welcome.