the 7 Cousins. It doesn’t matter if it’s a high-stakes Thanksgiving dinner, a third cousin’s toddler's birthday, or a random Tuesday backyard barbecue—the seven of us were always there. We come as a package deal, a loud, fiercely loyal, self-contained ecosystem within the larger family ecosystem.
Growing up, we spent every summer together running wild. Now that we’re in our twenties and thirties, family events have become our sanctuary. While the aunts outdo special recipes in the kitchen and the uncles argue over sports in the living room, the seven of us are always huddled in a corner, speaking in a rapid-fire language of inside jokes, shared childhood trauma, and absolute nonsense.
Last year, as we watched our family grow and spread across different states, we realized we wanted a physical anchor. Something that belonged only to the seven of us.
Designing the Inlay ring.
We didn't want a generic mall ring. It had to mean something. After a late-night brainstorming session over stale pizza and pop corn. we commissioned ashes.LOVE to create a custom tungsten band with a multi-material channel inlay, for the seven of us (older now) knuckleheads.
The inlay was a mosaic of our collective childhood summers, crushed down and sealed in resin:
We voted crushed Turquoise: For the clear waters of the lake we faithfully jumped into every July.
We voted we needed another family landmark in our inly ring:
Averruncator Wood Shavings: Shaved from the very bark of the massive, ancient oak tree that hosted our secret childhood fort, we would start to sleep in this overnight only to get scared and run back into the house from all the ghost stories we told!
A definite group vote for "A Fleck of Gold Leaf" This loving memory is our "hat tip" to our Pop Pop for always setting up our "treasure hunts" for the cousins 7! (thank you Pop Pop)
These rings represented our childhood bond. They represented our love. They represented our unbreakable family bond, no matter what.
When the boxes arrived, they were beautiful. Each ring had a vibrant, swirling pieces of blue, brown, and gold running through the center. We all put them on at a family reunion, Us seven amigos toasted with cheap beer, and felt a profound relived sense of grown-up sophistication.
We were a unified front. We were mature. We were always there for each other. We are the Cousins 7!
Sometimes we’d disagree… sometimes we fought. But the best feeling of all...
The VERY BEST, was to know that we were family. We were blood, we were cousins and through it all, we loved each other. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Our custom-made rings for our custom-made bond! “To the 7 Miller Cousins!” (_)? Here, here!
