I haven’t seen him for almost 16 or more years. He was the one that was always doings things to get a reaction and not good ones at that. It started as a child trying to get a mother’s attention and who knows why it carried on as long as it did but he would try so hard to please and when that would not work the he would resort to some behavior of shock. This would also create havoc because it would be the drama of the week that the family depended upon for its regular dose of chaos. Pretty dysfunctional indeed, but surviving this way eventually becomes normal. At any rate, my cousin was very talented and as he matured, he took his wife and went away to the wide open spaces where he could create, and that he did. He played musical instruments and wrote music among other things that I am not aware but he was always involved in a project when I would see or hear about him. My mother kept in touch with him and his wife. She played the surrogate mother for him as he depended on her understanding of why his family was so very mean to him and lacked understanding of who he was as a person. I came to know that they lacked understanding of themselves and therefor it was not my cousin that was so odd in this cruel game of lets hate him because we can. Relationships have a life of their own and create a form good or bad that we learn to live with. Sometimes, that form of ourselves is a disabled version of what other people have told us we are. The ideal solution is to grow towards the truth of the matter and know thy self. This way, there is no contradiction to the alignment of the soul and this is what will sustain us for years into our lives. He died in his sleep. I think it was his heart. 3.13.14 ∫