My Cousin’s Keeper

 (A gross exaggeration of course, but I have to come up with a title and I’ve made many jokes over the years that I don’t have siblings**, I have cousins!)

** not entirely true - God rest your soul, sweet Linda! I’ll come back to write more about that later, but for now I’m concentrating on my cousins…

My dad was the youngest of 3, the only son of George Sr whom I never knew (he died when I was 2). He was raised in close proximity to his cousin James - nicknamed “Tag” because he tagged along with the Lewis family every chance he got…  Kind of sad because it looks to me like his mother pawned him off on other family members quite often - at any rate, Tag enlisted in the Army, was sent to post-war Germany & came home with a German war bride. He went to work in the aerospace industry (Lockheed & Martin Marietta, he was a real rocket scientist!) & moved to California. They had a single daughter, five years older than me - we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, but we were always kept appraised of each other’s accomplishments. Heida married her high school sweetheart & worked as a medical librarian at Stanford University for over 30 yrs. Her marriage imploded about 10 years after mine with many parallels to my situation, in that her husband gaslit her, trying to persuade her that he was not cheating even when it was blatantly obvious! (In Ian’s case, it was the Burning Man festival instead of endurance rides)

Heida’s decision to retire and move away was expedited by her former father-in-law‘s passing - he owned the lot next door to her: her ex-husband inherited it and she is convinced that he will build there.  Heida is a devout Catholic (much more devout than me, ha ha!) which is why she settled on this retirement community at Notre Dame. Tonight I can get out my suitcase and start packing!