Kindred Spirits

Our family has the great joy of getting together with my wise and wonderful sister, her kindly husband, and their four angelic children rather frequently, given the geographical distance between us.  At least once a year, often more than that, we convene for a few days of frolic and frenzy.  The children, all close in age, get along swimmingly, with the occasional exception of one or two of the second-borns acting funky upon feelings of real or imagined exclusion.  Each visit picks up where the last left off, with no need for reacquaintance.  They are cousins, magically linked to one another.

With a history of visits and a strong cousinly bond firmly established with their maternal cousins, I was glad, but very slightly anxious at the prospect of spending Thanksgiving with paternal cousins we had not seen in almost four years.  I was eager for my children to get to know their "other cousins," but quite frankly, I didn't know how they would get along.  I hoped it would go well, but one never knows.  The last time we got together with these cousins, a dispute over a toy umbrella resulted in a gash over one child's eyebrow and the confiscation of another child's brand spankin' new Christmas presents.  Talk about a merry Christmas...

As it turned out, I had absolutely nothing to fear and so very much over which to rejoice.  Almost as soon as The Cousins arrived at Grandma's house, our older boys paired off with the older two boy cousins.  Andrew and the cousin closest to his age were inseparable, as expected.  John and his oldest cousin, now eleven, were practically joined at the hip.  The younger children mingled with each other and with the adults and older cousins.

But the boys...  I hope they will forgive me for calling their cousinly friendships nothing short of beautiful.  One pair in particular touched my heart as they interacted with flawless peace and grace.  Sometimes they ran ahead, but these two, rather noted for their exuberant energy, absolutely soothed my soul.  Something in the way they walked together, talked together, stuck together assured me that they will, by God's grace and the kindness of sympathetic hearts, grow to be amazing, dynamic, compassionate, spectacular human beings...  because in the light from a kindred spirit, that's what they already are.