We Are Family Even If You're Not My Favorite

My father was the youngest of eight children, and I am the youngest cousin in the family. I'm closer in age to my second cousins which has led me to establish close relationships with them, as well.

My fathers oldest brother passed away at a young age leaving behind a daughter who was my fathers godchild. Being Polish and Catholic my father took this responsibility to heart and treated my cousin Lorraine just like a daughter, and my sister, brother, and I love her like a sister.

This is my cousin Lorraine holding me on her wedding day in 1952 as you can see there is a large age difference. She being the oldest cousin and I the youngest.

Recently my cousin moved to Florida to live with her oldest daughter. She needed to downsize her belongings, and after her six children removed what they wanted from the house I was called to come pick up some items. Thrilled I was to see two photo albums filled with black and white old photos, some old suitcases, old prayer books, and a shirt box from a fancy department store in our town that has been gone for over forty years.

I said my goodbyes, knowing this would probably be the last time I would be able to hug and kiss her, but because of modern technology I would be able to chat and see how she was doing via Facetime or Skype.

She is all settled in at her daughters house and is doing extremely well, we talk often.

When I arrived home that day with the treasures that my cousin gave me, I quickly unloaded the items in the garage, and brought the photo albums in the house to have a look.

Excited I placed the album on the table and opened it up to find it was filled with photos of my least favorite aunt and her husband.

I am now the keeper of their 19 X 12 wedding photo minus the vintage bubble frame.

The two albums were filled with photos of Aunt Vi, here is just a sample.

The pages were filled with photos of Aunt Vi, but I did come across a photo of my father with my aunt.

This photo was taken in 1921, my father was born in 1909. He would have been twelve years old in this photo, but he certainly looks older. This is the only photo that we have of my father as a child, we have never seen a baby or toddler photo of him. This is a treasure to us, and I appreciate that my aunt kept it safe in her photo album so that I could find it.

I will carefully store my aunt and uncles photos as I have done with the other family photos for future generations.

I know that my cousin Ruth from the blog Dian's Timpanallley is laughing at me right now. Ruth lived in a different state and only visited once in a while, so she thought Aunt Vi was wonderful.  

I'll show you my other treasures in a future post.