Relatives Turning To Strangers

Mentioning my uncle's funeral procession brings out another problem on relationships. I had met many relatives in my uncle's funeral procession. However, it seems that as most of us had grown older, our relationships had also cooled with age.After greeting my other uncles, aunties and cousins, we could not seem to find any topics for our conversation, all of us just remained in silence till one of us managed to find some other distractions and excused himself or herself from the crowd.

I can still remember vividly the good old times that I had with my close cousins. My mother used to bring us to my grandma's house where she stayed with my eldest uncle's family. We used to spend the whole afternoon playing carroms, board games, acting out our own stories using dolls and many types of non-computer games. My mother had to persuade me to go home during evening as I had too much fun and was unwilling to leave.

Another young cousin and I also used to talk for hours when we were young. We would discuss on different topics happily and often forgot to keep track of the time we had spent. All these memories have become history now.

As we all grow older, all of us become distant and behave like new friends introduced for the first time. Our relationships are not as warm as they used to be. Some people have told me that this is associated with growth as we become acquainted with more people in the society, we tend to form our own perspectives of other people and may find ourselves having different ideals, objectives and goals thus distancing ourselves from people whom we think have changed into someone unknown to us.

To me, even best friends have their own individual goals and ambitions. These do not hinder their deep friendships which last till the day one of them die. So, why can't cousins remain as warm cousins sharing each other's happiness, sadness, worries and grow old together ?