The Last Conversation With My Cousin

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Anon, Anywhere, The Last Conversation With My Cousin

I will never forget the time when one of my cousins called after I had not been able to get in touch with her for a couple of years. I remember her voice on my answering machine.


“I miss you,” she said. At that time when I heard her voice I my heart jumped for joy. I was happy she was trying to make an effort to contact me for a change, instead of the other way around. I used to be the one that would always try to contact her.


However, that time that we ended up contacting each other had been the last in several years. I hate it to be that way and I hope I get to see her again, when I am ready.


I will never forget that original contact. I thought it would have been a pleasant conversation as we had other times. However this time was different. We did not get into an argument, but the subject of the conversation was quite disturbing to me. It was about my family.


I know that my family had its share of problems. I myself had suffered quite a bit of abuse from both of my parents. However, when I got on the phone with my cousin the last thing I wanted was for her to criticize my family-no matter how bad it was with us as kids.


It’s not that I thought everything was okay, but…seriously I was a naïve child and in some way I wanted to remain that way. I wanted to believe that my life was okay and that my life growing up “could have been a lot worse”. However, my conversation with my cousin really truly opened up some worms that should have been left in the can they were stuffed into.


All she could do was talk negative about how my dad supposedly threw a chair at someone while she (my cousin) was sleeping over one time. I wouldn’t have put it past my dad at the time, because he was not such a nice person. However, I could not believe that my cousin would just call me up and then not have absolutely anything nice to say.


I mean, she didn’t even talk about any of the happy memories we had of playing together. Or of the time when she and I ate at Mc Donald’s with one of our step grandmas and I climbed into the wrong car.


She didn’t even talk about the times when we would play in our grandma’s pool. No, instead, it all had to be negative gossip about everything, including about my dad.


I was thinking of keeping in touch with her at first, but then I lost her address. Perhaps losing her address was my subconscious way of deciding that I didn’t want to be brought down such a painful road. I did not argue with her on the phone that last time we talked. However, I am sure my silence was enough to let her know that I didn’t really enjoy talking to her that much.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so naïve and pretend like everything is or was okay while I was growing up. On the other hand, my family is the only one I will ever have, and the only dad I will ever have.