Recently I found two of my long-lost cousins on Facebook.  I haven’t seen these guys since they were maybe 17 and I was 10.  I reference them and their dad, an uncle of mine, in my book because they were people who figured quite strongly in the first 10 or so years of my life.  Then their dad died, and my dad saw less of that side of the family.  I haven’t yet told them about them being in my book, and I probably should at some point, but in just an initial FaceBook chat thingy, I felt it wasn’t the time just yet.

What finding these two twin cousins from childhood has made me do though is go back over the first five or six chapters VERY CAREFULLY...more than I already have been doing.  Now that I know these guys again, and they know me, we all have become real people to one another...Not just some memory figures from 40 years ago. If I hadn’t approached them on FaceBook, they could one day very easily pick up my book via downloading on line or an actual store purchase and be very curious but not necessarily like what I had to say about that side of the family.  Not that I said anything bad, but from their perspective, I don’t want to share TMI or dredge up a lot of negative imagery.  I am not sure how this sector of the family dealt with their father’s too-young death from cancer.  (He was only 48.) I only know my and my parents’ side , which was a feeling of dread, intense grief, and for me personally, the whole experience brought about night terror type sleep issues for years....Till I was an adult. It was the first death I had to deal with, and it hit very hard.    

I don’t think an otherwise perfect stranger or non related to the family person would find anything I said objectionable.  Most likely my twin cousin brothers won’t either, but I probably need to address the topic with them at some point.  These days, just because somebody dies, it’s not an excuse to pull away completely from the family.  With so many ways to keep in touch via email and social Internet sites, people can figure into life for as long as we want, and as closely or as distantly as we wish to make the relationship.

I am not sure how involved with these cousins I will become, but however it works out, I want positive feelings and good will in our families.
P.