Dearest Aunt,
I've been thinking of you a great deal these past few weeks. I'm not sure why but I've taken the opportunity each time you pop into my head to remember all of the things about you that I love so much. The real things, the difficult to express things, the roots that lie deep in the heart of all feelings.
I've been wanting to stop in to visit and just hug you but I haven't. I was trying to fall asleep tonight and I was imagining going in to visit, snuggling up in the peek-a-boo room, having a real heart to heart. I was going over all the things my heart wants to say to you, honestly and openly. But I don't know if I can do it without embarrassing myself silly with tears and emotions. :) So forgive my cowardice. Coming from a family such as ours, and my newfound understanding of Mum and how she became who she was as a result of circumstance and experience and pain, I understand better now more of who I am and by extension, more of who you are as well. And when I look back, the picture becomes so clear and I feel you blossom before me into something even more beautiful than I'd seen even then. So I decided I was going to write it down instead.That way you can read it privately with no expectations for either of us. It just feels better this way, for me. :)
I was always fascinated by you. Yes, I loved to come to your house and play with my cousins but I also loved being around you too. I still remember how strict you were with meal times and appropriate snacks. I turned my nose up and resisted mightily at the force-feeding of celery and cheez whiz but you made me eat it anyway! Granted, I still can't eat it without screwing my face up but now it's more of a smile because it makes me think of you and how I could never make sense of why I adored you so much when I would have despised anyone else who tried to make me do something I didn't want to do. I could never reconcile those two things. And then you'd follow up with chocolate cake and 7-minute frosting, always keeping me on my toes! I never got my answer for a long, long time because it didn't matter. The paradox of that alone was enough for me to know you were special to me. I knew I loved you regardless of anything. And that has never wavered, not once. You provided an odd sort of stability for a little girl who didn't even know she needed it.
I think a big part of that was the chaotic environment of my own home. When I came to your house, I felt security in the order there because your passion was so genuine. Harsh even sometimes! And I don't mean that in a negative way, it just tends to be a label truth-seekers seem to get slapped with. I could feel your genuine feelings shining through and, in my house, true feelings were always concealed even though I felt them keenly, I could make no sense of the madness at that age. Your house brought a refuge from that, a truth that came from you. Your fiery spirit kept me alive, kept me going, reminded me that there is always a way to express oneself honestly and openly with no fear of the consequences. You're one of the first rebels I ever made note of and you always did it with class and an edge.
I remember every time Mum would get off the phone with you from a two hour conversation and I'd be waiting with a list of questions for her because, of course, I was listening to one side of the conversation the whole time! We'd sit for another hour and discuss all of the things you had to say. You were one of the few people Mum never judged as a gossip. She could always spot a faker and, in her eyes, you were not one. You always told the truth. She knew it, I knew it. We needed no salt. The facts are the facts! That's not to say you never put your own spin on the facts but you always said so if you did. Mum appreciated your perspective very much. I'm not sure if you knew that but she truly had a great deal of respect for you. And Mum didn't hand out those kinds of compliments to many people at all. Not genuinely like that anyway.
This brings me a little closer to what I really want to say. Mum was also a truth teller. As am I. Like Mum, the one thing that makes me angriest of all is when someone lies to me. It was the first negative emotion I clung to that I forced myself to examine with abandon. Every spiritual teacher I listened to or read kept saying the same thing. They kept saying it made me angry because I was also a liar, to put it bluntly. And that made me angrier because that wasn't true either! Except that when I directly asked myself if it could be true, and took a moment to pretend it was true, the feeling that washed over me was shame. Deep, dark, grief-filled shame. It was the deepest pain I'd ever felt and I cried and cried and cried. I couldn't explain it, what came over me in that moment. But I knew in that moment that I was a liar and I'd been lying only to myself. And I did it to protect my heart from that deeper pain of shame that sat there always simmering in the background. It's sneaky, dangerous and deadly and it held me prisoner for a long time.
However, acknowledging it also served to lighten my load quite a bit and opened up a new path of self-discovery. I left the shame right where it was, in its dark and scary little box, and decided to seek truth from a different perspective. Much like you always do! You absorb every fact and view it objectively in order to find the truth in a situation. The big difference is applying that lens to ourselves... Ha! But that's where our feelings come into it, for us. They really don't lie, they are there to help us uncover more about who we are and they can point very blatantly to beliefs we've been taught that just don't hold true from direct experience. We harbour lots of those thanks to the English style upbringing. And that's OK. :)
I was a judger. Mum was a judger. You are a judger. Doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong, that's the real deception. Your heart always knows because compassion resides there. Our feelings are a direct truth teller of our beliefs. If something makes us feel like shit and it makes no sense, examine it. What is it I believe that isn't actually true when I look around at my life for the answer? It's a challenging thing to do at first because it requires compassion for ourselves. To take that step and assure ourselves through whatever means necessary that it's going to be OK. That's why accepting Jesus into our hearts means what it means, because that is precisely where compassion lives, in our hearts. That was Jesus' super power and he was trying to show us how easy it is and it starts by loving our own hearts and understanding that we are indeed worthy to be here. All of us.
I went through a period during this "uncovering of lies" phase where I thought a lot about Mum and how it became so clear to me that she had also suffered from this but never managed to quite peel that layer back. It's not surprising, that shame pain I described was the most powerful thing I'd ever felt. I got it from her so she must have felt it even more keenly than I did. Like my heart turned into a black hole inside my chest and was sucking at my insides. I don't feel it anymore, thank God, but I remember it very well. It's not a pain I would wish on anyone. Not ever.
If you feel it too, and I'm fairly certain you do because it's woven its way into the fabric of our family and is being jostled loose to heal. I'd be very surprised if it isn't lurking around inside you as well, cleverly disguising itself as worry and concern. :) You are a powerful angel who may have lost sight of her wings. Three more angels came to help you find them and, like all of us, those angels may forget as well. It's not easy here. Mum is hard at work in her angel form to remind us that healing is its own sort of pain. She is diligently on your side, even now. Loving you, asking for forgiveness and encouraging you to forgive yourself for whatever it is you did or didn't do. You haven't done anything wrong. And, if you doubt that, don't you dare be afraid to examine how exactly you are defining the word "wrong". Test that definition to see if it's true or not. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when the answer clicks inside yourself. :)
If Mum were with us right now, if I could go back in time, I would express that to her more than anything. Don't be afraid. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's fear. And fear can hide itself under the cover of all the others: hate, envy, arrogance, shame, greed, all of it. Mum was fearful and she was also amazing. The sacrifices she made for her family were too many to count. She suffered and she struggled all the way to the end and not once did she dare to complain. If you go by those standards, she made it to the finish line in fine form and I respect her more than anyone for that accomplishment.
Yet, she was not perfect and she also caused pain to others. Not intentionally, she was unaware. We all are most of the time :) She caused a great deal of pain to me, emotional pain, never physical. It's much more difficult to forgive as a result. She didn't know the consequences of that, she was doing the very best she could under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. She never lied to me because she truly believed what she was saying. It was her truth. It just wasn't mine. She had to believe it, otherwise she'd be a liar and that was the worst sin for her as well. I never understood, "Forgive them for they know not what they do" until I experienced it directly as it relates to both Mum and Dad and who I was to become as a result of their influence.
It took me a long time to forgive her because I needed to forgive myself first. I needed to forgive myself for feeling I wasn't worthy enough to be loved, that I should be ashamed of even thinking anyone could ever really love me, for believing that there's no point in getting one's hopes up and for being a liar. The very worst one was believing that I didn't even have a right to be forgiven even though I never quite knew what it was that I had done so wrong in the first place. I came to believe all of those things were true, deep down inside, and they aren't. They are lies. I unknowingly lied to myself... For decades... :)
I am worthy of love, I am easy to love, I can have hope that won't break me and I will not lie about how I feel.
I'm becoming just like you.
You have always been a hero to me and you always will be. You helped me when you couldn't have known you were helping, decades after the fact as I revisit memories now. I am forever grateful for your existence, my life would not be the same without you having been in it. Your three guardian angels are the best and most beautiful cousins and friends I could have ever hoped for growing up. Allow yourself to accept all of the love and appreciation I have to give you because it is genuine and unlimited. Just like you. <3
Much love and blessings,
Your favourite niece.
PS: I wrote this publicly yet pseudo-anonymously. I'm not going to share it with anyone but you, consider it our little secret that's hiding in plain sight. Only you and I need ever know. Of course, if you want to share it, that's entirely up to you. I'm not ashamed of anything I've written here. I meant every word and I love you forever. Thank you for being you. I'm going to B-E-D now. ;)
