My dad grew up very close to his first cousin. They caught crabs together along the shores of Matanzas, Cuba, where they shared a childhood. They tied razor blades near the base of their home-made kites and flew them in fierce competition with other neighborhood children. If you cut another's kite string, you got to keep their kite.
My dad once confided that his younger cousin was a daydreamer, head forever in the clouds, with unconventional interests (science, nature, predictions about our technologically promising future) that didn't necessarily resonate with the other neighborhood kids. My dad took this cousin under his wing, and wherever my dad went his shadow followed.
When my dad married my mom and started a family, this cousin was living in San Francisco in what was, by our family standards, a very hippie existence. Unkempt apartment, subsistence jobs, lots of weed. Years later, his wife would confide that when she was getting ready to deliver her first child, she shared a joint with her OB/GYN.
Still, he found time to be a part of our lives. He spoke often to my dad by phone, made it to our milestone events, and even persuaded my father to take us on a weekend trip that dad could never have conceived of on his own.
This cousin had read about a tourmaline mine in eastern San Diego county where, for a fee, you could show up, take a tour of the premises, and search through the tailings (the decades' worth of dirt and rock that had been excavated from the mine shaft and was strewn over the hillside) for tourmaline fragments, quartz crystals, and other semi-precious rocks and minerals.
He joined my dad to take my brother and me to this mine over Easter weekend, the four of us setting out to seek treasure. As it turned out, there was an easter egg hunt staged all over the hillside for the children. I guess taking your kids to traipse around an unprotected mine shaft was not considered neglectful parenting back then. Ah, the '80s.
We found some beautiful pieces of tourmaline. My brother struck up a conversation in Spanish with some of the miners, who were charmed enough to gift him the trip's biggest chunk of gemstone-grade clear green tourmaline. I found a piece of watermelon tourmaline (green and pink hues in the same crystal).
My dad was enchanted by the purple lepidolite, which was abundant. He found a fist-sized piece encrusted with opaque pink tourmaline, brought it home, and kept it on his desk at the office for decades as a memory of that weekend together. (Dad's piece of lepidolite now resides in my own office, a memento of the off-kilter adventures he took me on as a child.)
It was one of the more memorable childhood adventures we shared (exactly zero friends in my grade-school took a similar "vacation"), and my brother and I still reminisce over it as a touchstone family experience we shared.
As an adult, I remained close to this cousin of my father's, phoning him to check in periodically (long distance was a big deal back then, so it took effort and came with a cost). He would relate his latest fascination with an article in Scientific American, and I adored him for our shared unabashed nerdy enthusiasms.
He made a significant effort to attend my medical school graduation, driving up from LA while his wife stayed behind to care for his young kids. It reflected his typical combination of big heart and limited foresight. I welcomed him into my San Francisco apartment the day before graduation to find that he had not made arrangements for accommodations.
"Can I just crash on your couch?"
I could not say no, and he did. Fifty years old at the time, he was still a kid at heart.
He, in turn, allowed his affection for my father to flow to the next generation, and we developed an adult friendship that stood on its own legs. When my daughter was born, I popped her in a car seat and drove an hour to meet him for lunch at a Cuban restaurant. We attended his 60th birthday bash, on a sunny afternoon in his carefully cultivated garden filled with tropical fruits.
A year later, he died of a heart attack.
I now check in with this cousin's son by phone. He embodies many of the qualities I so loved about his father, and I am grateful we've developed a relationship that each of us value independently.
Tomorrow afternoon, my son and I will drive to an airbnb north of San Diego for a "dirtbag dad weekend." The next morning we will rise early and drive to the same mine in eastern San Diego county where, for a fee, we will have the opportunity to scour the hillside for semi-precious stones.
I relish the chance to gift my son our own unique version of that weekend my dad and his cousin took me and my brother on those many years ago. There's something that tickles me in continuing dad's legacy of eccentricity.