Second Day of the Week

As small children, my cousin Coco and I were inseparable when we lived with our grandparents. She, being a whole year older (and a few months) was—well, older. As such she did have a small claim to being up the ladder a step above me. In our day that could be a claim to some fame as the older a child the more authority they had over the younger children. In theory at least.

With Coco and I the authority was a dubious quality. I might have been a bit heavier than she was, but she had fingernails. In a brawl the fingernails usually won.

We were mostly peaceable because she was a bit more of a shyster...excuse me, manipulator...well, you fill in the blank, and I was just plumb gullible.

For instance, Coco came up with the idea that when we were playing, no matter what or where we were playing, whoever could say first: I've got the first best houses, cars, horses, cows, dogs, clothes...ad infinitum, was the (and we shortened the phrase to) 'first best in everything and all that jazz'.

So, whoever could say that (I'm first best in everything and all that jazz) would always be that. So everyday she remembered it first and every day she was, except one day. The one day I remembered it first and said it first, and she said, 'Oh no, I said that a long time ago.'

Of course I couldn't remember, and it must not have been worth the brawl, and so it was. She was always the leader and decider.

On a farm we get what is known as 'salt blocks' for the cows and horses. All animals need salt and the salt block was for those critters to lick for their salt supplement.

We children must have needed extra sodium as well, because we found we could take a small rock and break off small pieces of salt, which we would put in our jeans pockets.

This was a necessary item if for example you were wandering in the timber (which we did daily) and you came across a gooseberry bush with green gooseberries. We would pick those green gooseberries and eat them with salt—of course.

We could eat the green ones, but my cousin Coco told me we could not eat the black ones, which there were a few of on occasion. Coco said they turned black because a spider had bitten them and they weren't any good. Well, she was my 'elder', so she would know.

She also told me we couldn't eat the 'stringy' thing from the bananas. Those weren't good for us. I missed her company greatly after her mother remarried and took her to Davenport to live, but she did come back on occasion, usually for holidays.

One time when she came back she shared with me how she really liked to eat aspirins. Just put them in your mouth and let them dissolve. Yeah, well she was older than me, and I was still gullible.

As we grew older she went from being the fifty pound weakling to the ninety pound weakling, and finally to the one hundred pound weakling. She read stories and would give me book reports when she came home. (Grandpa and Grandma's farm would always be 'home' to all of us).

But we grew up. She went into nursing and got married. I graduated, worked as a waitress and a nurse's aid, and got married. And we drifted into our own lives and after a family rift (not caused by either of us) we drifted apart.

After a few years I tried to contact her, but wasn't successful. So it was, when my Adorable Cousin and I were on our way home from an adventure we stopped by to visit our Grandparents' graves. We were both shocked to find our cousin Coco's headstone in the family plot.

Had I persevered at the time when I sought to contact her I might have made a difference. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, as heart wrenching as to discover you're too late in such a matter.

For about twenty years I grew away from most of my family, except for my Grandparents. Old Fuzzy and I were busy raising our kids and we were involved with his family. It has only been recently, in the last fifteen years that I've reconnected with my Adorable Cousin, her family somewhat, and recently my sister.

Drifting away was easy, coming back—not so easy.

James 4:14 "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15) For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. 16) But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. 17) Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."