My Butterfly Cousin
Woman in the Middle | June 28, 2017This is a small and humble tribute to my cousin who left us too soon.
It is a little odd to be the youngest of 25 cousins, like I am on my mother’s side of the family. We were so spread out that many of my oldest cousins could have been my mother or father. One or two I have never even met in person. Many had children older than me. Growing up, my anchor to that long line of people who were both my generation (same level on the family tree) and yet seemed so far away in age, was my cousin Jan.
When you look at the age spread, things began to peter out in cousin terms there at the end. Jan, just two years older. was closest to me by a long shot. So, for me, in the world of cousins, Jan really was it until I became much older.
My earliest memory of Jan (keeping in mind I have very limited memories of early childhood) is when they visited the summer around when I was five. We went to Hollywood and got plastic statues from a machine that molded them right before your eyes. We also got a group photo in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Here we are at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Jan is in the front on the left and I am on the right. We are holding our plastic statues we had just gotten from a souvenir machine. In the back are cousin Linda, Uncle Ken, Aunt Pat, and Mom.
Then there was the visit when I was about nine and Jan was that preteen age. Since it was summer 1971 (I am pretty sure), it is no surprise that she was in love with the Osmond Brothers. She introduced me to their music and her favorite song, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” She particularly loved the end when the music stopped and they just harmonized A Capella. I admit it, it wasn’t such a big thrill to me as I hadn’t discovered music yet, but I remember to this day how much she loved them, as only an adolescent girl could. That was the same trip where she teased me one day when I mentioned cotton candy and she said she didn’t know what that was. I finally went and asked my aunt, who said Jan ate that stuff all the time. What can I say, I was really easy to tease. Still am, truth be told.
The summer I was 15 my mom made plans to visit our Tennessee and Arkansas relatives and, for some reason, decided to send me two weeks early to stay with my Aunt Pat and Uncle Ken. My Uncle Ken was driving a sales truck for a company that made, among other things, peanut butter crackers. My Aunt Pat made up red Kool-Aid and I ate a boat load of those crackers and Kool-Aid that visit, as the combination was delicious.
Fliting about the house was my 17 year old cousin, Jan. I still had braces and glasses. While I think I cleaned up pretty well later in my teenage years, at that point I had not changed from a caterpillar to a butterfly, if you know what I mean. But Jan was already a butterfly. She was a cheerleader, had a boyfriend, and seemed so far out of my league. I am sure she was thrilled (not) to have me thrust upon her those two weeks (although I think I was fairly easy to deal with because that was also the trip I discovered the thrill of nail painting and spent a good amount of time doing that). Jan even had to share her double bed with me. I am sure that trip of mine was decided upon by our mothers without our consultation or consent. But I don’t remember her being anything but nice to me. She was all blond hair and smiles and southern accent.
While trips to visit weren’t frequent, my mother and her sisters wrote letters back and forth to each other. Remember back in the day when long distance phone calls were so expensive and people actually wrote letters? Well, we heard all about Jan entering the Miss Memphis contest (twice!) and while she didn’t win, she was a finalist both times. That just further burnished Jan’s beautiful butterfly image in my mind.
There were more trips back to see the family.On another visit I remember her trying to achieve that thing were advised to do back in the 80′s – the color coordinated closet. Remember, everything was supposed to be two base colors one accent color? She was the only one I knew who was even trying to make that possible. Again, I was in awe! She began working in a jewelry store and learned to string pearls. Seriously, working with gemstones and stringing pearls. Could my dear cousin seem any more glamorous? She restrung the pearls my mother had been given by my father. which my mother later gave me.
Jan married, but we didn’t go to the wedding. We went back soon after, however, and saw the little place where she and her new husband lived, and I once again saw the butterfly future laid out before me of marriage and setting up housekeeping and it all looked so foreign and yet so wonderful. I had no idea what my future held, but I wanted it to hold what I saw in Jan’s life.
At some point after that my life and Jan’s started diverging. I still loved her and even asked her to be in my wedding, but she wasn’t able to. She divorced, while I married and had children. She never had kids, and she moved from Memphis to Nashville, so it was harder to see her. When my mom died, Jan sent me a lovely card, really the best one anyone sent, and I still treasure it.
The last time I saw Jan was the time we flew into to Nashville because it was cheaper to fly four people there than to Memphis. We had a good day, seeing the sites. Meanwhile, I kept up on news of Jan as I was in contact with her older sister, my cousin Linda. Linda was the one I visited in January.
While Jan’s life, in the end, did not include a husband or children, she found joy in training dogs. She even had a search and rescue dog that could find bodies, even in water. Yep, my butterfly beauty queen cousin was out looking for dead bodies! Who would have guessed? Her search and rescue dog had passed away and she recently got a new puppy to begin training, even though she was having health issues.
I am not sure if I believe in psychic abilities. But, when Linda called me on March 30th I was on the phone with another friend. I saw that call come through and felt there might be a problem, so I planned on letting my friend finish the story she was telling me and then get off and call Linda. Then I got a text from Linda asking me to call her, and I knew, in my heart of hearts, that something had happened and it had happened to Jan. I got off the phone with my friend immediately and called Linda. I was right. Jan couldn’t be reached at her home near Nashville. Linda requested the local police go to Jan’s home. They found my dear butterfly cousin, but her spirit had already flown away.
I am happy to report that her puppy and another dog she had were fine and have now been adopted by friends. She would have wanted that very much.
We may not have been in contact very much, but it is still hard to imagine that somewhere out there Jan is no longer here, on this earth. She was too young to leave this life. It is difficult when someone leaves us so soon and so unexpectedly. But I hope her spirit is dancing out in the cosmos some where, that beautiful butterfly cousin of mine.
A beautiful tribute!
Thank you. That was a really tough one to write.
What a wonderful tribute, our cousins are often our first friends
You are so right about first friends. Thank you for your comment.
I’m sorry she left this world so soon.
Thank you.