8 Middle Adulthood 221in there or did we just fear it? Would we ever get out? Would we be found?
I look for him now but can only find him in my memories and his photographs.
* * *For a time I found it difficult to get used to him not being.... Not being
what? Around? Most of the time during the past almost 50 years, he’s not
been around. I guess I found it hard to simply get used to him not being, not
existing. After his death we started having “cousins’” lunches:” his sister and
her husband; his widow; my husband and me, meeting in Annapolis, a town
about mid-way between our respective homes. At the first couple of lunches
I felt like we were flying in a “missing man” formation. I keep wondering what
he might say; what food he would order; what joke he might tell. But as time
has gone by, I have taken to simply enjoying the company of family. I guess
I have my deceased cousin to thank for that.
I’ve had over a year now to reflect on my cousin’s death and what it
means to me. What makes it different from other losses? We shared a child-
hood together. But it’s more than that. Best friends can also share a childhood.
We shared our childhood in the context of shared family. When my grandpar-
ents died, his grandparents died. When his father died, my uncle died. When
his mother re-married, my aunt re-married. When his sister married, he was
the best man and I was a bridesmaid.
A friend asks if anything has ameliorated my feeling of loss. I have to
think about this for a while till I realize. Yes, writing this essay has helped. And
more than the writing itself, it’s the remembering that helps.
I remember the hot summer evenings when we played baseball on the
makeshift field in a dilapidated area in our apartment complex, euphemisti-
cally referred to as “the playground.” The games ended when we heard “dum
ta dum dum” through open apartment windows, the signal that Dragnet was
about to begin.
I remember the vacations our families took to Wildwood Crest, New
Jersey, where at day’s end we sat on the lifeguard stand and later walked the
boardwalk, stopping to admire ourselves in the distorted, “funny” mirrors.
I remember lying on picnic benches counting shooting stars and collecting
Coke bottles at the recreation center to exchange for penny candy at the mom
and pop store across from our elementary school.
I remember the day my uncle, my cousin’s father, died when he, a teenager,
cried out in anger and anguish. I remember the day he married his lovely wife
and the incredible speech he made at his daughter’s wedding a short 3 years ago.
Is there pain in the remembering? Yes, but a certain sweetness also. I real-
ize that with the remembering, I honor him and the childhood we shared.
“Four Photographs” by Judy Catterton4 photographs
taken by my cousin
an amateur photographer
better than good