Mistaken for Brothers

This past weekend we attended the baby shower for my cousin Jake and his wife Elif. It was good fun, and the second Saturday in a row we drove to Santa Monica.

Jake and I were born about two weeks apart (he earlier, near the end of March, me after the beginning of April), and while we grew up on separate coasts (he in North Carolina and me in California), I always feel like we're pretty close---but only when we get together, which is criminally rare for two guys who live as close as we do to each other.

And this isn't the first time this exact thing has happened. We even joke about what terrible cousins we are, since this is a recurring theme. Jake's dad, my Uncle Paul, said that it's just not a strength of the Sherwoods---to make sure contact is kept up and vibrant and recent.

For years, Jake and Elif lived in Hoboken while we lived in Brooklyn, separated only by Manhattan and the Hudson River. We got together socially once, and once I went to check out Jake's company in a "professional" setting.

Now, and for a few years yet, Jake and Elif live in Santa Monica and we're down here in Long Beach, and the last time (and, incidentally, the first time) we've seen them in this "era" was at our baby shower at Auntie Peg's in Santa Monica, and Corrie wasn't even there.

This past weekend, hanging out among some of their closest friends, and who are all in the same age bracket and Corrie and I---and mostly in the same baby-having bracket as well---someone came to me with a hint of recognition in their face and said, "So...you're Jake's brother?"

I laughed and said, no, actually, we're cousins, born a few weeks apart back in the day. And, for the rest of the event, people were as shocked as maybe they should be---"Wait, Jake has a cousin living in Long Beach?" and we all shared a laugh about it.

But it reminded me of a moment at our own baby shower back when Cass was only a day old. Someone came to me and nodded towards Jake and said, "So...that's your brother?"

That Sherwood Y-chromosome is something, man, I'm telling you...