They say cousins are usually the first friends we have and that no one will understand your crazy family like they do, and it’s true.
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I was blessed to grow up with a pretty tight family. My mom being the middle of 4, I was lucky enough to have a lot of buddies to hang with. I had the older cousins to look up to and get advice from, the same age cousins who would very quickly become my forever best friends, and the little cousins who made me know I wanted to be a Mama one day. They were the people that my brother and I could count on at every family get together to run around with, climb trees, make sand volcanoes, sing silly songs, and to laugh with. They made everything so much more fun. No matter how many hours away we lived it was always like we had never missed a day apart. There’s no awkwardness, we just get each other.
My cousins have been my support system my entire life. We’ve all lived with each other, at least a time or two over the years. We could fight like real siblings, and then laugh it off the next day. We’d stand up for each other against anyone else too. We want what’s best for each other and can rely on one another for real, genuine advice. Many people have best friends, my best friends ARE my cousins.
They are the ones I call when I need words of encouragement, someone to laugh with or cry with. They are the friends that I grew up with, experienced some of life’s greatest first alongside, like having babies and watching our babies be each other’s first and best friends. One of my cousins even let me in the delivery room as she brought her son into the world and that will always be something I hold special to my heart. She was the one who quite literally held me up as we shut my Dad’s casket for the final time.
Being able to grow up close with my cousins will always be one of the things I cherish the most. I’m so grateful to have the relationship we do and even more grateful my babies get to grow up with their cousins (both 1st and 2nd that is).
If you were lucky enough to have your cousins as your first friends too, let them know how special they are because there really is no bond like the bond between cousins. And, because no one else really understands your family the way they do.
