I stood over the gravesite and for the first time all week reality hit hard. My cousin was gone. Thing is she wasn't just my cousin, not at all actually. She was the greatest babysitter ever and though years had passed since I'd seen her or spoken with her, in many ways she symbolized my childhood. From "stinky chips" to chip bag tattoos, coloured toothpaste in our hair and Dolly Parton cassettes, tie dyed tshirts and nighttime sled rides that ended in peed pants and burnt pizza, as I stood over the gravesite a flood of childhood memories washed over me.
And with them came the sharp pain of my sister and niece's estranged relationship. I found my heart aching to drive down the road to my parents first home where they brought me home from the hospital and then back through the city to the home I had grown up in. There was a desperation in my heart to go back to those summer days where we would play outside for hours, eat chips from "the store" on the front steps, or go skidooing through the woods on a winters night. I could hear Kim's laugh bubbling through the house and I wanted to be a child again so badly I couldn't hold back the tears. As the casket was lowered into the grave I felt like I buried my childhood innocence. Oh I know it had been gone for awhile now but I missed it, longed for it, in a way I hadn't before. With love and respect Kim. You were gold.
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