Shortly after I turned 18, my mom and I went to stay at my aunt’s house (perhaps for a weekend or something), which is in a small town about two hours outside of our city, and in the semi-middle-of-nowhere.
My cousin Shawn, who is not quite a year older than I am and was/is also my Confirmation sponsor, decided for us to go out for a bit, late one night. He was reminded of the fact that I had recently turned 18, and so declared that we needed to have cigars to celebrate. I shared my being not into it, but went along to the gas station, where he bought two small cigars (which smelled nice, actually).
We ended up at a park down the street, play complex and all, and I don’t remember if Shawn smoked his cigar or not, but I know that I did not smoke mine, and ended up just giving it back to him. Nonetheless, we hung out at the park for a couple hours, I recall, just walking around, talking as we played on the various playsets. I remember specifically mentioning how I loved that Jesus has fabulous grammar in the Bible (I think it was as I was walking across the shaky bridge thing, and then slid down a pole at the end). Somewhere, I had been discussing with girlfriends the idea of husbands and boyfriends and such, and we had come to the idea that Jesus just needs to be a real person right now, so he can be one of our boyfriends. And I just loved that he had perfect grammar (at least from what I recalled having read), making me wish even more that he could be my man. Haha.
So these are the kinds of things I did with my cousins growing up. Harmless, somewhat silly activities, filled with goofy yet incredibly honest and open conversation. I miss Shawn a lot, and all the ridiculous love he has to share (and shares) with the world.
He’ll be in India for a while soon. Just a fun fact. 🙂
