My cousin Debra

When my mother and father divorced way back when, my Dad and my stepmom were very good at keeping my sister and I in touch with his side of the family. There were weekend trips to Grandma's house as often as I can remember, and I have wonderful memories of my Uncle Adolf and Auntie Doris, my cousins Kelly and Jason, the park with the weird and ancient play equipment and the walks up the tracks or in the ditches north of town to collect everything from rocks and railroad ties to ancient looking cigarette tins. I also remember meeting up with folks who were passing through town, and going to hang out at my cousin Gordie's house. But sadly, as often happens, I grew older and stopped going for regular visitation in favour of hanging out with friends, and I began to lose touch. I suppose living with my mother didn't help as for whatever reasons the older I got, the more divided I felt in my loyalties. Then when I moved out, the onus then fell entirely on me to maintain whatever bits of contact I could muster. And I didn't.

In retrospect, I guess there were a couple of reasons for it, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most was lacking that feeling of entitlement. I was one of the 'divorced' kids and despite the fact we were always kept abreast of and openly invited to family functions I never really felt like I would be welcomed, or even deserving of being welcomed. The longer I stayed away, the more this feeling grew.

I remember hearing friends talk about all the wonderful family gatherings they attended - reunions, birthdays, Christmas and so on. I was always a little jealous, since my Mom's side of the family isn't what you'd call close-knit. While I was younger, they were. When my grandfather and uncle were with us, we'd carve pumpkins, make horrible food, pester each other, play, and laugh ourselves silly. My grandfather and my uncle were the glue that held the family together. My uncle died of complications with pneumonia just days after my 20th birthday; my grandfather had already spent 5 years in an extended care facility battling the degenerative Alzheimer's disease. Once my grandfather's body finally caught up with his rotted brains a couple of years later, that side of the family had already started falling apart, and completely disintegrated shortly after the funeral. There are no more memories of happy family gatherings on that side, only strained meetings and obligatory participation in the odd Christmas or Easter thing.

My Daddy died very suddenly on August 3rd, 2006. I found out while standing on The Edmonton Queen River Boat, surrounded by my 3 dayhome children, my daughter, and my middle son. Stranded on the boat, I had to wait 45 minutes for the boat to finish its cruise, then make it home to get the dayhome children collected before I could do anything. While I waited, in complete and total shock, I felt completely, utterly alone. Yes, my husband was an amazing support, and my dayhome daughter Madisyn was a rock (for which I will always love her very much) but the only person in my family who could share my pain was my big sister, who was in Arizona at the time nowhere near a phone and at least 2 days away from being close enough to hug and cry with. She was my only family tie.

There's a whole other story between that point and this point, which I'll leave for another day. You all needed that little bit of backstory for this post to make any sense.

This is my cousin Debra, and I am in love with her. (The handsome devil in the picture with her is the love of her life Charlie.)


Debra too lost touch with a lot of our family, for her own reasons. To illustrate how disconnected we both were, we actually owned houses just 3 blocks from one another for about 4 years, and my sons used to walk past her front door on their way to school every day, and we never knew it.

She too was one of the 'divorced kids' (her Dad Freddie was my Dad's older brother) and went through her own trials of fire that led to her being displaced and somewhat estranged from the clan. When she heard news of my father's passing, she took a huge leap of faith and decided to show up for the memorial. For this, I am truly grateful.

I need to list some of her qualities and I'm not quite sure how to do it without sounding like an obsessed fan, so I'm going to go for it and you can all just suck it up. ~wink~

Brave, kind, generous, gregarious, beautiful, funny, welcoming, strong, wise, exuberant, accepting, effervescent, intelligent, resilient, forgiving, understanding, outgoing, lovable, and loving. I'm sure I could hunt through the thesaurus and come up with a list 10 times as long as this, but you get the idea. The path that her life took, what she has endured and not only bounced back but blossomed from is admirable. She is a role model and inspiration. She is a sage - a veritable wealth of advice and common sense - and has somehow managed to tap into the fountain of youth that all but obliterates the age gap between us. She is in love with life, and therefore, it's impossible not to fall in love with her.

After many years of feeling like I was somehow detached from my relatives, in no small part from Debra's example not only have I reconnected (read: been drawn into the black hole of never ending love lol) with my extended family, but I've come to realize that as much as I feel I am unlike anyone on my mother's side of the family, I'm just one of the slightly off, crazy, weird, fun-loving gang on my Dad's side. Thank you Debra for your inner and outer beauty, your persistence, your strength, your existence. Thank you for joining Clothing Club. And especially for throwing my mother RIGHT out of her comfort zone by unabashedly calling her Auntie! HAHA!!!!

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