Dead cousin

 A first cousin of mine died a couple days ago. No, no—don't cry for me. Cry for him. We weren't close and we grew up in different states. I didn't know him well. He seemed like a good man, though, and I think we might be our immediate family's equivalents in some ways. We're both the youngest, neither of us married or had kids, neither of us had notable career success. 

He kept his childhood name, with the diminutive suffix. I admire men who do that. I fought hard to get rid of the "y" after my name largely due to insecurity when I was in my early teens. The uncle I was named after kept his until his death in his late eighties. That wouldn't have been a problem for me if I, like him, had been a fighter pilot in two wars (WWII, Korea) and later, a company president.

When my cousin and his father stopped by on their way elsewhere some time in, I think, 1963, he drew on our bellies with a marker and took a photograph of us as we bathed. My cousin is on the right. This was a far more innocent time than our own and this photo had been framed and put in, appropriately, one of our bathrooms, where it stayed for many years. It is, for the record, the only photo of me sans clothes anywhere. As far as I know.