LOSS COMES IN ALL FORMS
My mom sent me a picture today of my cousin, it is her birthday, she is 66. She is 8 years older than I am.
We don’t keep in touch, no social media, no letters or phone calls, my mom doesn’t either, she saw the picture on my cousins kids Facebook page.
My cousin stopped talking to all of us about 22 years ago. It wasn’t something that was abrupt, no announcement or big fight, just a gradual, passive closing of the door. It’s been harder on my parents than me, they don’t understand this silent treatment. They talk about it a lot, the what if’s, what for and what happened? For me, I kind of understand, disappearances come easier for me maybe. Not really, I still think of my cousin.
My cousin had a hard childhood, a lot of trauma and violence. Her mom, my favorite aunt, died of a brain tumor when she was 39, from a push down the stairs by my drunken uncle.. All of their lives were messy, always.
My parents were there for all of it, they took care of my aunt and my cousins when they needed food, clothes or a place to stay. When my aunt passed away, my cousin was the youngest at 19. She would come for summers to help take care of my brother and I while my mom worked and my dad got more education. . We saw her a lot; she was the closest thing I had to a sister. I looked up to her, we were a lot alike and we could relate well to each other, like siblings.
Seeing her picture today made me think of the loss, of what was, of those summers and what will never be again. I have thought of her a lot over the years. Thought of writing her and telling her what she has meant to me, what she has meant to my mom and dad.
I think about my mom and dad, all they have to do is wonder what they did to make her go away. The only thing I can say to them is she has a lot going on and let her go, but they can’t. I think if she came back into their lives now I would lose my mind. I would worry she would go away again, she cant be trusted and I would worry she would take advantage of them. So I don’t write her and tell her all the things I think about and how much it hurts my parents that she left.
They have sent their yearly Christmas card to her and they get back a generic reply if anything at all. Better to have nothing I think. For me I think good riddance, there was so much I didn’t like about her in her later years. Her trauma seeping through I guess, the lies she told, the deception about nothing that mattered to anyone, things that made her life seem awesome. I didn’t care, I loved her with all of her flaws and all of her pain. She lost her mom in a tragic way, I could understand and empathize what that did to her.
I was her cousin, sister and friend. Seeing her today made me remember what I have lost.