By a guy who still remembers the sound of childhood

On my father’s side of the family, my generation wasn’t very large, but I had cousins who were a constant part of my life.

Or at least I did once. That particular branch of the family tree feels more like a memory now than a family connection.

Funny how a sentence can change with age.

When you’re young, cousins aren’t relatives. They’re simply part of your life. They’re there the same way summer is there. The same way scraped knees, bicycles, and afternoons that somehow lasted forever are there.

We were inseparable.

Every day.

Didn’t matter if it was blazing hot or pouring rain. Didn’t matter if somebody had money or didn’t. Didn’t matter who was winning or losing at whatever game we had invented that afternoon.

We were just kids.

The kind who believed the world would always stay exactly the way it was.

The kind who never imagined growing apart because growing apart wasn’t even a concept yet.

Back then, family wasn’t something you maintained.

It simply existed.

You woke up and there they were.

You laughed until your stomach hurt and there they were.

You got into trouble and somehow everyone had everyone else’s back.

Simple.

Beautiful.

Permanent.

Or so we thought.

Then life happened.

Life always happens.

It scattered us like leaves caught in a gust of wind.

They moved to Virginia.

We ended up in England.

An ocean has a funny way of stretching more than geography. It stretches conversations. It stretches memories. Eventually it stretches relationships too.

Years passed.

The little kids who spent every day together became adults living entirely different lives.

Then we moved back to America.

North Carolina wasn’t exactly next door, but it was close enough that a reunion happened.

For a brief moment, something familiar returned.

The laughter.

The stories.

The feeling that maybe time hadn’t stolen as much as we feared.

Then life happened again.

One moved to Europe.

Then Japan.

Military life has a way of putting entire continents between people.

And somehow, somewhere along the road, we became strangers.

No argument.

No dramatic falling out.

No single moment anyone could point to and say, “That’s when it happened.”

Just distance.

Silence.

Years stacking themselves between people like bricks.

Then came one of the darkest chapters of my life.

My divorce.

Rock bottom is an interesting place.

You discover who checks on you.

You discover who doesn’t.

You discover which relationships existed only in your memory.

The funny thing is, I never asked them for anything.

Not money.

Not favors.

Not rescue.

I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

I carried my burden. I’ve got my mother’s side cousins who were or are always there. They’re my Angels, I will love them more than myself.

Meanwhile, my ex-wife spread rumors that painted me as something I wasn’t.

Eventually the truth won.

The accusations crumbled.

Reality caught up.

But lies have a nasty habit of arriving first and unpacking all their luggage before the truth even gets through the front door.

Perhaps by then the damage was already done.

Perhaps not.

I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is this.

I tried.

More than once.

Phone calls.

Texts.

Messages.

Facebook.

Friend requests.

The digital equivalent of standing outside someone’s house and knocking politely on the door.

Nothing.

No anger.

No rejection.

No confrontation.

Just silence.

And sometimes silence cuts deeper than words ever could.

It’s a peculiar feeling to discover you’ve become invisible to people who once shared your entire childhood.

People who knew your younger self better than almost anyone on earth.

People who once couldn’t wait to see you.

The thing that saddens me most is that there aren’t many of us.

Not in our generation.

We’re carrying the same stories.

The same grandparents.

The same family photographs sitting in dusty boxes somewhere.

The same childhood that nobody else remembers quite the way we do.

Those memories belong to all of us.

Or at least they used to.

I inherited my mother’s heart.

For better or worse.

She was humble in ways the world rarely rewards anymore.

She believed in reaching out.

Giving people chances.

Leaving doors unlocked for reconciliation.

I suppose I got that from her.

Because despite everything, I kept trying.

Part of me still wanted to believe the cousins I remembered were still there somewhere.

Buried beneath adulthood.

Buried beneath pride.

Buried beneath whatever invisible wall had been built over the years.

But some people spend their entire lives looking down on others.

As though family itself comes with rankings.

As though bloodlines have social classes.

As though one branch of the tree somehow grows higher than another.

I saw it when we were young.

And sadly, adulthood didn’t cure it.

If anything, it strengthened it.

Success became competition.

Achievements became reasons for jealousy.

And family became something measured instead of cherished.

It’s disappointing.

Not because I need their approval.

I don’t.

Not because I need their friendship.

I’ve built a good life without it.

It’s disappointing because it didn’t have to be this way.

That’s the tragedy.

Not what happened.

What could have happened.

The conversations we’ll never have.

The stories we’ll never share.

The laughter that never got a second chance.

Sometimes I wonder if they ever think about those days.

The games.

The adventures.

The afternoons that seemed endless.

The version of us that existed before careers, marriages, divorces, status, pride, and all the other things adults collect along the way.

Maybe they do.

Maybe they don’t.

I honestly have no idea anymore.

But despite everything, the door remains open.

Not because they’ve earned it.

Not because I expect anything.

But because carrying bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping somebody else gets sick.

If they ever reach out, I’ll answer.

If they ever call, I’ll pick up.

If they ever decide they remember who we once were, I’ll be here.

Still.

Always.

And perhaps that’s the saddest part of all.

Time and distance didn’t just pull us apart.

Those things happen.

They happen to everyone.

What truly hurts is that somewhere along the journey, hearts became unreachable.

And when that happens, the miles no longer matter.

You can be separated by oceans.

Or you can be separated by a few miles in Virginia.

The distance feels exactly the same.

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My book, Hidden Alignment is still available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle for those interested. Link and QR code below.

Link: https://a.co/d/0enjFI6f