My cousin Pat died

Now all the females on that side, are on the other side

So many childhood memories have come up for me in the last few weeks. Not just childhood ones though, past relationships, past versions of myself that conjured up shame and embarrassment. Also sweet memories, many of innocence lost.

Lots of things have been rising.

And the consistent message is, “Let go. Release with love.”

Earlier this year, I hosted live sessions here on Substack, a course in fact, on letting go. As the universe would have it, I have some letting go to sit in myself. My physical body has been calling out for an unclenching, in a not at all quiet way.

I got word this week that my first cousin died. She was 65. She had cancer and I don’t even think she shared the extent of its advancing stages with her own brother. I messaged her on her 65th birthday, about 7 months ago and she seemed in good spirits, celebrating her birthday on her own in a new restaurant she was exploring in a small town in the US.

(My Aunt Doo (MaryLou - I couldn’t say her name when I was little) on the left and my cousin Pat on the right)

I have memories of her having the most enormous Barbie collection, but not only the dolls but all the accessories and one, maybe two giant cases to carry them all around in. Later, I remember her in the local newspaper profiled as the first female bartender at the tavern in her rural Ontario hometown. She was always inspiring to me.

I also remember her pain. She worked for the Canadian Coast Guard at one time. I was in college when I’d get calls from her on the college dorm phone, drunk and crying. She felt responsible because someone died when she was on the dispatch line with them, the Coast Guard boat not able to make it in time. I didn’t know that it was PTSD back then.

She was whip smart. Everyone knew she was. She was quick witted, but there was also a darkness there, from deep wounds.

Hers is another story that needs to be told. She takes her place with Grandma Stafford, my mom, my Aunt Doo (Pat’s mom, my mom’s sister) and now Pat.

They’re the inspiration for something I’m writing. Because I feel like they’re all with me now. And I need to explore that.

All of our voices, together, once silenced, now quietly stepping into the spotlight and the microphone.

Truth, they’re asking me to tell the truth and I must.

I’ve drafted a proposal for a book. One that examines the convergence of journalistic truth and mystical truth.

Can someone be both a journalist and a mystic? A witness AND a witch? I have no idea, but we’re going to find out.

Watch this space.