Hi everyone! My name is Maegan, and I am Jeffrey's cousin. I would like to take a few minutes to tell you a story about family, about reconnecting, and about love.
This past October Jeffrey messaged me about a recent trip that my husband, Aaron, and I took out West. Having a cousin reach out about a trip that you took may not seem like a big deal or mean much to some, but to me, it meant everything. You see, Jeffrey and I had lost touch many years prior. Growing up, we spent holidays and weekends together in Pittsburgh, our families were incredibly close! However, as we got older, our lives took us in different directions, and we always found ourselves hundreds of miles apart. Florida and State College, Michigan and New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania, and now Colorado and Pennsylvania. I was giddy with excitement when he reached out to me, though, because I remembered those shared holidays and weekends, how much fun we had, and I was so happy to have heard from him.
As we chatted, we bonded over camping, National Parks and our love for travel. Travel talk turned into career talk, which turned into hobby talk, which turned into talking about our lives and our love for our nieces and nephews, and most importantly, our futures. We were both newly married, had new homes, and were excited to start families. Over the coming weeks, our chats grew more frequent and more meaningful. We giggled over similarities in our lives, we shared stories, and we started to get to know each other again.
In February, Aaron and I flew to Denver to spend the weekend with Jeffrey and Nick. I will admit, I was a little nervous. Even though Jeffrey and I had been speaking so regularly, we still had not seen each other in a long time! My worries we're unfounded, though. From the moment that we arrived, we felt entirely at home! Not only were Jeffrey and Nick wonderful and welcoming, every detail of their house invited us in too. Their walls were filled with photos of them, their friends, and their family. One of their spare bedrooms was setup with twin beds for when their nephews visited. There were twinkle lights in the bushes out front. Each room had little pieces of all of the things that they love, and they have a wall filled with Lego sets in the office! It was obviously more than a house; it was a home filled with love and life. We spent the entire weekend in our pajamas - laughing, playing cards, eating way too many donuts, playing Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise board games, telling stories about growing up, going for a hike, and one of my favorite parts - cooking together. It was amazing, and it felt like Jeffrey and I picked up right where we left off so many years ago.
When Aaron and I left, we hadn’t even made it to the airport and the four of us were already talking about our next visit together. I couldn’t get enough of spending time with them! It was incredible to reconnect, be invited into their space, and to get to know them on such an intimate level. My time with them showed me that Jeffrey and Nick’s love for one another is infectious! The way that their eyes light up when they talk about their love story, or how they’re going to decorate the nursery, going to Disney for the 50th time, or even how they came up with an escape room for their nephews on New Year’s Eve – it’s nothing compared to how they light up when they talk about becoming daddy’s. Spending the weekend with them made me realize how much love they have, and how much love they still have to give. I am so excited for what their future will bring, because anyone who knows Jeffery and Nick knows there isn't anyone out there who deserves to become fathers more than them.
I am so grateful and blessed to have these two in my life, and I can say, without a doubt, that a child would be even luckier to have them as their daddy's!
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