COUSIN Lucille

When you are an only child with 5 cousins they tend to take the place of siblings. My cousin Johnny was like the big brother I never had. His two sisters are older than me by 13 and 15 years, Johnny was their baby brother. They tell me they were so excited to get a little cousin when I was born. They had apparently been bugging my mom, their Aunt Margaret, to have a baby so they could play with a little cousin. At that time they were so grown up that I really don't remember having anything to do with them even though we would visit as often as possible. Probably once I got out of the cute toddler stage and into the annoying little pest stage they tired of me rather quickly. These girls and their brother lived on Staten Island which at that time was the end of the world. Staten Island is one of the 5 boroughs of New York City but it is the one borough that was isolated from the rest of the city with no easy access to it. As a kid my parents would pack up me and my maternal grandfather, who lived with us, and off we would go for an all day trek to the wilds of Staten Island. We would drive an hour from our house in Queens to the ferry terminal in Brooklyn where we would wait in the ferry line for our chance to board the boat for our half hour trip to the desolate island. It was like traveling to another world. I thought we lived in the country in Eastern Queens but Staten Island was even more remote and uninhabited. My cousins lived in a tiny, tiny house. Looking back now it was probably more like a 4 room shack. There was indoor plumbing but it really didn't work all that well so there was always a bucket of water to help flush. There were rabbits in cages in the back garden along with bee hives. I remember picking vegetables for dinner and helping Uncle Johnny gather some honey. I always got a piece of the comb to chew on till all the sweet drippy honey was sucked out of it and all that was left was a large glob of wax. Dinner was usually hossenfeffer which, I didn't find out till many years later, is rabbit. It was delicious even if it probably was that cute little bunny I had been playing with on our last visit. The alternate dinner would be stripped bass that my uncle had just caught that morning. My Aunt Tessie was a genius in the kitchen and could create the most mouth watering dishes out of almost nothing. I used to think my cousins lived such an exotic life near the beach on this island in the bay. They would be on the beach all summer and could roam the woods all year. They were always tan and seemed so happy to be on their own. Then the Verrazano bridge was built and all the illusions came crashing down. Years later I have come to find that my beloved uncle who played the drums and harmonica and led the parade of little cousins all around the yard was in fact physically abusing his wife and children. My older cousins all have emotional scares from their childhood and it isn't until now that they share any of their memories with us younger.
I have lost touch with cousin Johnny although his 2 sisters are now in touch with him after a very long separation. I see my oldest cousin the most because she is living only a few miles up the road from me here in Florida. She is now widowed and in her 80's and each time we see each other our bond grows a little more. Funny how much she wanted this little cousin in her life and yet it isn't until 60 years later that we have become friends and truly family.