The brisk, frigid wind burnt my face as I stood a number of yards away from the yard fence. I waited for the go from my cousin; a torn up black and magenta foam soccer was hurled my method. I jumped and lunged for it, solely to really feel a gentle thud on my abdomen and see the ball fall to the bottom. My cousins angrily reproached me, however my blunder didn’t make a distinction after Thanksgiving dinner.
The custom of the eight-hour automotive journey to my cousins’ dwelling in Virginia has been a tacit rule in our household. Regardless of how a lot it snowed the evening earlier than or how foreboding the highway circumstances appeared that morning, the custom was upheld. Possibly it was the stress my sister and I placed on our mother and father or their very own want to see the few family we’ve got in America. Thanksgiving holidays have at all times been the correct time.
We’ve got recognized one another virtually our total lives, shared inside jokes, grown by way of onerous occasions and at all times felt snug collectively. This time, nonetheless, issues have been totally different. It may have been that my youthful cousin was virtually as tall as I, or that my older one had simply began school and was flaunting his Duke paraphernalia.
As I give it some thought now, I do know that what I sensed as totally different that Thanksgiving was our rising up. Earlier than, we had at all times been kids, harmless and carefree because the wind that burnt my cheeks purple. Now I may see extra the person in my older cousin than the kid that I used to know so effectively. His issues have been totally different than mine, his philosophies appeared so complicated and unfamiliar to me. His maturing was the primary actual discovery of the bridge into the grownup world. Earlier than my mother and father’ world and mine had appeared like two separate entities: theirs being the certainly one of duty, authority and knowledge, mine crammed with questions, issues and issues they helped me work out. Now I may see the grey space the place my universe would slowly soften into theirs.
I suppose that Thanksgiving was the proper time for my revelation – every year we had twelve lengthy months separating us, time to develop up and mellow earlier than our subsequent household reunion. I by no means did understand till that momentous weekend that my cousin was virtually a person – and that I might quickly observe –
