In response to yesterday's Jersey post, I received two lovely gifts from readers: (1) a track from a Titus Andronicus album and (2) a Facebook comment from my baby cousin. Merely she wrote: "I remember those memories."

There were six of us in those days: my sister and me, who were the visitors; and my four cousins, who lived in New Jersey. We saw each other two or three times a year, almost always on their turf. I was the oldest, with the rest born rapidly thereafter, in a four-year knot. We loved each other, and played hard, and then grew up to be very different people who rarely see each other, except at weddings and funerals. But when we do see each other, we are still the same six-of-us we have always been.

When our grandmother died, we were in our late teens and twenties. We were the pall bearers for the funeral, all dressed up in uncomfortable shoes and embarrassing ties. After the funeral, without conversation, we trooped back to my aunt's house, went upstairs to one of my cousin's bedrooms, and sat around silently listening to Bruce Springsteen sing "Born in the U.S.A." Nobody bothered to figure out any explanation for this or divulged any pointless chattery opinionating. Talk is not part of our relationship.

When our grandfather died, we were in our thirties and parents ourselves. After the funeral, which we'd spent hushing children, driving cars, escorting elderly relatives, etc., we all trooped back to my aunt's house, took off our uncomfortable shoes, and climbed onto the backyard trampoline. Then we started jumping up and down together, up and down, up and down: six big grownups in funeral clothes, a couple of us starting to bald, bouncing on a trampoline, no doubt looking ridiculous. Who knows why? We certainly don't. And we never plan to talk about it, which is fine with me.

Some things in this world do not require words.