There’s Kissing Cousins And Then There’s Kicking Cousins

I lost my grandpa early this May, and the grief hits harder some days than others. Come the memorial about two weeks later, his family and friends are around, half of us crying, the other half sharing amazing stories — half of which I’d never heard, and sorely wish I had — of the generosity my grandpa showed almost everyone in the family.

One of my cousins is there. I went to Taekwondo class with her for several years and we got our black belts together about six years ago. She’s fifteen now, and I’m twenty-four; age difference does make a bit of a difference here.

After being at the memorial for maybe half an hour, she loudly starts complaining about how she’s done and she wants to go home, looking at her mom — another of my cousins and a super sweet lady.

After about the fifth or sixth time she does this, when she does it directly in front of me, I turn to her, sick of it, and trying to keep it together. I say, “I’m sorry that my grandpa dying has ruined your day.”

She just stares at me like I’ve grown a second head, and I storm off.

Up until she did that in front of me, I was doing my absolute best to try to understand where she was coming from; she didn’t know my grandpa all that well, and she’s a teenager. But how entitled do you have to be to say things like that in front of my face like that? It’s especially frustrating because her grandpa is my grandpa’s brother-in-law.