Out of the Mouths of Babes

My parents have traveled with my aunt and cousins to Midland to offer comfort and assistance to our family members who lost their husband and father yesterday. This morning I was getting an update from my father when he reported the youngest child seems to be doing better than expected. I reminded him that children grieve differently than adults. He laughed.

He said, “[The boy] was out in the yard area of the mobile home park playing football with a group of his friends yesterday when I went outside to see what they were doing. [The boy] introduced me as his ‘cousin-uncle’ and said, ‘Cousin-uncle Ted which World War did you fight in again?'”

My father will be 70 years old this year which would make him not alive for the first world war and a small child during the second. My dad got so tickled by the young man’s acuity to recognize anyone that old must have fought in a WORLD WAR. He is, after all, only in the second grade.

My daughters coined the term: COUSIN-UNCLE/AUNT to refer to my cousin (the sister-in-law to the man who passed away) as we are all very close. They got confused when introducing she and her husband to their friends so they began to call them “Cousin-Uncle and Cousin-Aunt.” Now many in the family use the term in reference between our siblings and children… It is quite fun.

A bright spot in otherwise dark and sad moments to be sure.