While I was on my holiday in the US, I did a road trip and visited various friends and family along the way. This particular story relates to a visit I had while in Pennsylvania.

I spent three nights in Pennsylvania with my aunt and her husband and during that time I had a visit from my cousin. Actually, it’s my mom’s cousin but she is my age. We grew up calling her a second cousin but I’m not too clear if that’s the right terminology. My grandmother had eight younger brothers and sisters. This cousin is the daughter of the second youngest brother.

My cousin K and I made arrangements for her to visit me at my aunt’s house one afternoon. She came there with her partner, much like she did the last time I saw her. We had a pretty nice visit while there and caught up on a few things in the family. It was going okay until we started discussing her brothers. One of her brothers had been in the hospital at the time with issues that hadn’t been diagnosed at the time. We talked a bit about that and suddenly she decided to phone him and put him on to speak with me. This is where it gets awkward because I have seen cousin K2 since we were children, maybe teenagers at the oldest. There’s another brother, my cousin, K3 that is pretty much the same. So there’s nothing quite like speaking to a virtual stranger for a few minutes. We did exchange a few words and I wished him better health and all that. But it was super difficult.

My cousin K and I spoke a bit more and then she decided I needed to speak to her other brother and put me on to him too. Another awkward conversation followed. It was slightly less awkward since he wasn’t in the hospital but it was a strange conversation.

I love my cousin but I guess this is part of her character and she is totally clueless about the situation she put us in. My guess is the brothers have been put in this situation many times before.

Fast-forward a few months and I see my cousin has posted on her Facebook account that her brother has lung and brain cancer. :( She and I aren’t close but I was watching for an update on her brother. I had kind of thought that whatever issue that had existed had resolved. Apparently not. I can’t imagine a double diagnosis like that has even a hopeful prognosis. I know brain cancer is particularly difficult to treat in a lot of patients. Knowing that he is unlikely to survive this makes me really sad. And partly sad for the fact I don’t really know him. Not that it’s possible to know all those in your family, especially when there are large families involved.

A couple of days after that post, she posted her other brother had gotten married. She also put up a bunch of photos of the bride and groom. Mostly there were photos of the bride’s family. There was one with my cousin and her brother with his bride and one of her partner, I think (It was a blurry photo). All the rest were of the bride’s family and friends. Maybe my aunt and uncle weren’t there due to the health issues of the other brother? I think this was the cousin’s first marriage and I hope it’s a happy and long-lasting marriage.