Mom called the other night. Apparently my cousin Suzie is dying of breast cancer. The doctors give her no hope. Both breasts according to Mom.

Suzie is a little younger than I am. By a few months anyway. Suzie kind of got to know me back in the early 80's when she latched herself on to me at Grandpa's funeral. I didn't get why she thought I was so cool. I figured it was because I was from LA and she was star struck by that. It took a few more years and a couple more meetings with her to figure it out. She had turned her back on our family's religious beliefs and somehow she had got it in her head that I had too.

She had become a Buddist and I had become a lesbian, I guess that made us non-fundamentalist soul sisters in her eyes. She was born and raised in Houston, TX to my mother's ultra religious family. I luckily found myself raised in California which gave me more choices to get away from that right wing bullshit. I managed to get away from all that crap fairly young. It's easy in LA, there are lots of opportunities to get away from shit there. She was stuck in the middle of the Bible belt. For me it was considerably easier to walk away from the lies of my mother's religion and find my own self. For her the road was harder. Much harder.  

The whole damn family lived in Houston. She was surrounded by them all, constantly being harassed by them and their religion. For me it was telling Mom to buzz off and going my own way in life. Suzie had a lot more work to do to walk away from all that and become who she wanted to become. She had to face the whole family's condemnation every time there was a family function. I never had that problem.

So if you think about it, Suzie was way braver than I ever was. And she clung to me because, in her eyes, I was a maverick just like her.

Now my soul mate cousin is moving on. I am feeling very sad about all that. She'll go on, move into a different plane for a while and then probably come back eventually and be someone else somewhere else in time.

I'll be thinking about this hard for the next few days I am sure.... my heart is heavy now.

Ciao