RIP My Cousin The Nun

I discovered on July 5th while doing my occasional search online for obits I finally found hers, which had not popped up in any of my previous searches this year. 

Coincidentally, I was in New Jersey running errands and made a point to stop off at one of the two Thai restaurants my cousin and I would frequent, and the food was even better than I remembered it from 27 years ago. Sadly, it sis not even occur to me to try reaching out to her yet again. Regardless of the reasons why she never re-established contact, it always felt like a rejection to me. 

She passed away in March, on my mom’s birthday in fact, and I discovered the obit on July 6th. I can only deduce the obit appeared recently as her funeral was on July 2nd. 

Despite my best efforts at trying to maintain contact with her, she either did not want to or was unable to do so, as she suffered some level of memory loss after a truck hit her as she opened her car door. 

I analyze things too much. She was capable of driving to my dad’s funeral in 2008. 

When mom died in 2020, I sent a letter as her phone was turned off or changed and emails to her bounced. She also was able to maintain an Etsy shop, selling semiprecious stones from her collection. And yet she couldn’t manage keeping in touch with me or any of our cousins. 

My skepticism is a byproduct of my own traumas I experienced long before living with her. I know I thought unkind things, but the sort of unkind things only siblings understand. 

As I get older, I am realizing multiple things can exist simultaneously, and sadly I was not raised with any conflict resolution skills. My only skill has been to run away and avoid things that are too painful or too complicated for me to make sense.

Regardless of the reasons why she chose to isolate herself from the rest of the extended family, some of whom, like myself, who would have attended her funeral, I have to respect her choice; however, it is sad to think that she died alone. 

Having a room of my own, as challenging as it was, was something I will appreciate forever. It was either that, or I live in my car. Despite my best efforts to be as unobtrusive as possible, I am sure just my presence in her house was difficult for her & her solitude. 

In hindsight, however I felt at the time at how we left things when she sold her home and I moved out, she was my maid of honor when I married again in 2001, which she relished by showing up in her shabby nun’s habit and our wedding ceremony started with her clanging on a Tibetan singing bowl and reciting a native American wedding prayer for us.

In that moment, I know she was happy for us, and who knows? Perhaps she was happy to be a maid of honor. 

Similar to my mom, she was a challenging person to love. Similar to my mom, my cousin’s relationship with her father was emotionally damaging, not unlike my relationship with my mom, or like mom’s relationship with her own father. 

I don’t recall if my cousin told me or if it was one of my mom’s stories (of dubious veracity) her dad didn’t want her or any kids, which was not dissimilar to my early developmental years, mom reminded my siblings and I how she hated us and never wanted us. My cousin and I both carried the knowledge & the trauma all our life. 

So, I can quit searching for her obit. I can stop yearning to re-establish contact with her. I know where she is now, and after 77 years, mostly of struggle and loss, she is finally at rest & in the hands of her guardian angel. 

The Limberger Incident

 “The Limberger Incident”

This is one of those crazy life stories, which happened during what was my first transitional year when I left my ex and lived with my mom’s first cousin, who was also a nun.

Behold! The Limberger Incident:

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” apparently did not apply to my cousin, whether it be her house, her FIVE cats, her car, or more specifically for this thread, HER BODY.

Living with her had its own challenges, namely the filth, the hoard, and her borderline antisocial behavior, and my discovery that I was allergic to cats. 

She made an agreement with my mom that I’d pay rent for my room, and i paid the entire bill for internet, and I found out after I moved in, indentured servitude was involved, cleaning the house the bathrooms were riddled with black mold, and cleaning the TWO litter boxes she had for FIVE CATS. 

Mostly, I just tried to avoid her as much as possible, as she’d vacillate from antisocial to something that appeared as an attempt at friendliness.  

The only way to truly know someone is to live with them. At the time i could not articulate how I felt living there; however, now it is 27 years later, I can say I felt like an interloper. She had crafted a narrative at her church that she was an orphan without any family who cared about her. And I suspect my presence in her home was proof to the contrary. 

She even went so far as to not let me know the date and time of her ordination ceremony. And the weekend of the ceremony when she realized I was not leaving to visit my parents for the holiday and my cousin realized she could not have her guest, a stranger, sleep in my bed, she grew hostile towards me and told me to stay to myself that weekend. 

I contacted her church to find out the date and time, and I attended the ceremony. Turns out, some cousins on her dad’s side of the family did the same. We all somehow found each other at the reception, and we all  remarked how her church family thought none of her genetic family existed. 

There were sublime moments living with her, but they were not a daily occurrence—namely our explorations of Thai restaurants that opened in our community and a neighboring town. She’d blurt out “want to Thai one on?” and off we went for dinner. 

For the most part, we got ourselves into a system, a habit. I’d come home from work and immediately take a nap (from 6 p.m. ‘til about 10 p.m., when she’d go to bed). I set my alarm and would get up when she was already ensconced in bed with her CPAP humming along. One night in particular is seared into my memory, and the memories of friends of whom I told this story to over the years.

On this night in particular, I got up, splashed some water on my face and dried off with her cute little fingertip towel (the fancy velour one with the angel aplique which she kept by the sink & I thought was a special towel “for company”) and wandered to the den to pop online.

I became overwhelmed by a most-unpleasant “aroma.” Fetid. Cheesy. Quite possibly *CONTAGIOUS.*

I sniffed my pits, and whafted air up from my crotchal region, taking a stink assessment, both of which came up with negative results on my parts.

I got up, and as much as it pains me to recall this, I dared to sniff the upholstery of the chair, thinking perhaps I was sitting in her filth. No dice.

The smell surrounded me like a bad Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

WHEREVER. I. MOVED. IT. WAS. ALWAYS. THERE….

So I retraced my steps from whence I woke up. I found myself back in the bathroom. 

At this point, I was very afraid and reluctant to pick up the fingertip towel (which for all intents and purposes APPEARED  CLEAN).

Reluctantly… hesitatingly… dry-heaving-ly, I put the towel up within sniffing range… and FUCK-ME-RUNNING-WITH-A-RED-HOT-POGO-STICK-THERE-IT-WAS!~

I can only conclude that my cousin used this cloth to either dry her vajoosh or perhaps take a swipe at the yeasty underfolds of her belly--OR BOTH. 

OH-YES-THERE-WAS-MUCH-PROJECTILE-VOMITING.

Here endeth the first story of my cousin.