I recently had the chance to spend time with a very special cousin, forging family bonds as adults.

Now, this cousin is 11 years younger than I am and still lives where she grew up, the Star City, Presque Isle; but it might as well have been foreign country to someone like me, who grew up in central Maine.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Presque Isle had traffic lights, a four-lane Main Street and a national department store called Zayre. Piscataquis County had none of those things.

My mother and her three sisters grew up in Mars Hill, and my mom was the only one who moved away. The other three sisters settled in Presque Isle, so when we went to visit, regardless of the season, it meant great food, conversation, laughter and most importantly, fun and games with all the cousins.

We would congregate at the wonderful house on State Street. There was a back staircase and a front staircase and one hidden staircase that we would use to really jump out and surprise people.

Meanwhile, our mothers and fathers were having a great time in the living room. I returned one time when I was older, with my mom to show everyone my new infant daughter. All the sisters were downstairs playing cards and drinking coffee in the kitchen when I came down to nurse her at midnight — and when I returned at 5 a.m., they were still there.

We always said not one of them wanted to leave because the other three would talk about her.

It was to this wonderful house of fun and memories that I recently returned. My cousin wanted some help cleaning out some of the closets in her house, and since I am recently retired and love to organize people and things, I was the perfect candidate to help.

Over the past four weeks I rediscovered that great house and also Presque Isle. Zayre has been replaced by Marden’s and Walmart, but it still has the four-lane Main Street and the traffic lights, plus many new, interesting stores.

I met friends of my cousin who said, “Oh, yes. You are Helen’s daughter. You look just like her.”

And others who said, “Wasn’t your father the one from Mars Hill who became a doctor?”

Each day, I would go through a closet and find pictures and treasures that my cousin and I would admire that night when she returned from work: the sympathy cards from my grandmother’s death in 1958, her brother’s 1966 high school yearbook, her mom’s special dishes.

This time, we were the adults, but there was the same great food, conversation and laughter. And I could still go up and down all the staircases, albeit at a slower pace.

I felt quite privileged to be back there as an adult with my cousin, and I suspect that all four of those sisters were happy we were together, too.

– Special to the Telegram