Chapter 3 The Pilgrimage: When you know better….

In the silence of her house, left exactly as it was when her father died three years ago, lives the clashing reality of love and loss;  

… her father’s purple plaid scarf and red-lined black jacket tossed across a chair, just as he left it;

… the yellowed, lyric-less sheet music, frayed at the edges from decades of playing “O’ Holy Night” on his prized Steinway piano, a ghostly reminder of his devotion.

That’s what love and grief can do, trap you from moving on, like flypaper to a fly.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.

No words are big enough, grueling enough, to encapsulate the weight of grief. Maybe colors—black, grey, onyx purple, lava red; or sounds—mating racoons, birthing mothers, the beating chest of a male gorilla—gets closer to the emotional pain.

Almost a week ago, when I stepped out of the cab with a carry-on case jammed with three weeks worth of clothing, I recalled the manicured lawn, flowering bushes and trees, the koi pond, and that memory’s contrast to how it is now; foot-tall weeds, overgrown vegetation and inside, squirrel piles of family photos; manifestations of grief.

She’s trying to make sense of it all, I thought.

My cousin’s family home is a 1970s museum, preserved from the days I stayed with her and her parents, the summer I turned 14. Still present, the eclectically placed illustrations of beloved cats, towers of music and history books, Auntie Mary’s blue and white China, the wild, patterned carpet, and family trinkets collected over time.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

When her parents died—Auntie Mary 24 years ago and Uncle Tom in 2023—my cousin became a daughter-widow, the last teller of family tales. Her parents, as I remember and she embraces, were incredibly loving and protective, sheltering her from a most savage world. As crazy as it sounds, I’m convinced they never intended to die; for how would their only child survive without their unconditional love?

Somehow. Over time. She has. One step, then two.

Friends help. Of which she’s assembled a cadre of colorful characters. Family too, to a lesser degree. But mostly my delicate, sensitive cousin has wrestled grief by herself—-with the support of her three beloved cats, Shakira, Bonnie and Romeow, who’ve given her a purpose and reason to open the drapes. 

Often, she gets stuck, in her head, in her jam-packed London house, in the time capsule of her childhood home; it’s better to collect new things than sort out what’s old. 

When I first met my cousin in 1970, I knew she was clearly different from my friends back in California; an empath (before anyone knew of the term) a tender-hearted soul who wouldn’t dream of hurting an ant, which, to this day, she insists on saving, scooting them out the door with a funnel and piece of cardboard, then wishing them well, “Off you go.”  

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Extreme. Unusual. But that’s my eccentric, compassionate, misunderstood, mistreated, creative, loving, intelligent, romantic and beautiful inside and out, cousin whom I’ve grown to appreciate, and dearly cherish, over the last several weeks I’ve been here. 

I traveled to England for my 70^th birthday month, with the excuse that I’d help my cousin sort out her life as she transitions from her flat in London to her family home in Stockton Heath. Instead, it’s she who has helped me.

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!

The room is silent as my cousin sleeps upstairs in her parents’ bed, feeling safe, feeling loved feeling less alone. 

O night divine, O night when Christ was born! 

I can’t help but wonder where I ‘ve been all these years, why I abandoned my cousin and my connection to this country? Why didn’t I sense, why I didn’t respond, why did it take me so long to follow my gut and do something more than Facebook-message condolences and heart emojis? She is, after all, family. 

Back in April when I was babysitting my friends’ pups, the idea of being in England for my BIG birthday was a random thought. I booked a flight hastily, uncharacteristically. Now I know why. Being in the land of my parents’ birth has tied together loose ends, renewing a treasured relationship, and inspiring a sense of adventure and travel.  

Being 70 is a gift, a second chance to do-over, do-better, be more intuitive, responsive, and stop postponing. Had I not reached this milestone, I probably wouldn’t have had an “excuse” to be here, which is sad, stupid and regretful. But when you know better, you do better.

Chapter 4 The Pilgrimage: A gravesite chat.