Your cousin is the child of your aunt or uncle. Very often, cousins turn out to be best friends, principally because as childhood playmates they knew how to keep one another’s secrets.

Often enough, cousins live near each other. In some cases, as when I was a child and my grandparents had this big beautiful house with a roof garden designed for Grandmother, we cousins lived under the same roof (until life came along and the older ones started getting married, one by one). In those days, houses were built for generations.

Memories of those days surfaced and resurfaced during the party to celebrate the 60th birthday of Verna, my cousin Ted’s wife. The party was held in what appeared to be the ballroom of a restaurant in Quezon City (which is where most of us cousins live), and it drew the young ones as well as their parents and in-laws.

Expectedly, everyone but everyone was in red, except Verna the birthday girl, who was in a shade of marine blue. However, the lanterns that hung from the ceiling were in red silk, as were the bouquets of red balloons that formed part of the wall décor, in other words, not for take-home!

At the party, what fun it was to meet again my cousin Irene, 88, who lives in faraway Bulacan. Irene’s mom, my Auntie No. 1, was my favorite “summertime aunt” because every year, she rented a big house in Baguio for us cousins to take turns enjoying our vacation.

Irene’s younger sister Annie was my playmate, until we grew up and college separated us. Then she married a handsome Manila-based Spaniard and they built the first of their homes in Pamplona, Spain before moving to the US. They have two sons.

As for my children, I am grateful that they have their cousins to share their weekends and parties with. Looking back, how I treasure memories of my cousins, with whom I learned about sharing time, toys and treasures, about give-and-take and being fair when you get into a fight.

In today’s technology-driven world, with screens of all kinds being as useful as part of your anatomy, a cousin is an old-fashioned friend to keep at your side.