Dear Dillan–

If I had known that nine years was all we'd get, I would have spent more of those nine years with you.  

If I had known that memories with you were a scarce commodity, I would have stockpiled them when I had the chance.  Instead, I have pictures on my computer, undated, and they are a slideshow in my head, silent and still.  We are at a Labor Day picnic, and I have just locked your name into my mind forever because I have so many little cousins and it's hard to keep track, but you are the one who hands me a banana to open, your tiny fist stretching into the sky and your hair an explosion barely contained in a knot on top of your head.  As you eat the banana, you lean back onto my leg and fall asleep standing up.  I am looking at the camera, because how cute is that?  I think you are saying something to me, but I don't know if or what it was.  I wish I had that in my stockpile.  Later I will hold you on one side and an umbrella on the other to shield you and our kinfolk from the sun.  You are a pleasant weight, and I imagine that this is a very good way to start a friendship, that I will show you these pictures one day and you will find it hard to believe that you were ever so small.

I hope you know that I love you, and, even if no one can quite keep straight the first, second, and thirds and how many times removed, that you are my cousin, and that means that you are very important to me.  When you are small, things change so quickly.  A few months would pass, maybe a year, between visits, and I think you might have forgotten me.  I didn't know time was so short.  But I think that I hugged you hello and goodbye every time I saw you, and I know that you remember my wedding, just as everyone who was there remembers you.  The last time I saw you, you were sleeping, exhausted from the chemo.  I was with your mom the first time you got someone else's blood, which really freaked her out.  And I was with her the day you died, and I sat with her on the beach and I watched the waves come in and wished that I had known you better.  

I am sorry for all of the time we won't spend together, because I think we would have been great friends.  Thank you for sharing some of your precious nine years with me.  I am proud to be part of your family, and I think I will miss you every day.