Dear Aunt Elizabeth

May 27, 2026

Dear Aunt Elizabeth,

Your daughter, my cousin Judy, and her friend were just in Chicago for a short visit.  While she was here, we talked about you a lot, of course, and about my mother too. After all, another Mother’s Day had just passed, and as always, I spend a lot of time each May thinking about my mother, and about all the aunts , who are no longer in my life.  You were the last of my aunts to die, and I feel your loss in a different way, since you were my biological father’s younger sister.

When I think of all of the female relatives I’ve lost, it always makes me feel sad that I was born when my mother was in her late thirties.  As a consequence, I never had a grandmother in my life.  I never had a chance to spend much time with you and the Cozier side of the family, because the plane crash that killed my father and brother traumatized us all.  We didn’t fly much, did we?

Growing up, my mother always told me that if anything ever happened to her, I would be raised by you and Uncle Jack.   I would usually respond with some type of smart-ass remark, like, “And who are they?”  I know you and your family visited us in Connecticut when I was about five.  I have some old photos, but no actual memories of that visit.  For me, it seemed like the first time we met was when Mom and I made a trip to Washington and Oregon to visit family, and we stayed with you and Uncle Jack.

I was pretty sure you didn’t like me.  Even at twelve, I was pretty sure about where I stood politically.  I must have been obnoxious.  I know I overheard you say to Uncle Jack that you blamed my stepfather for raising me as a Democrat.  Which is funny, because if he’d attempted to lead me at all, I would have run the opposite way and become a Republican.  That’s how much I hated him!

I remember liking Uncle Jack, but he teased me a lot, and although I’m now sure it was in an affectionate way, I got bullied a lot in school during those days, and I was uncomfortable with him as well.

There were several other visits.  I never felt they went well.  You seemed to disapprove of so much about me.  I wasn’t quiet enough, polite enough, I didn’t dress the way you wanted me to,

and the political differences only became more polarized.  As I began to gain weight in my thirties, you made your thoughts on that pretty clear as well.  If I mentioned these things to my mother, she would only reply with something like, “She’s your father’s sister.  You have to get along with her.”

The last thing I ever would have discussed with you was my history of childhood sexual abuse.  While I eventually learned when and how to discuss this with people in my life, I never tried with you.  I felt there was no way at all you would have heard me.  I was okay with that.  There were a lot of things I didn’t discuss with you.

At your funeral, Judy and I had a talk.  She told me you had guessed that sexual abuse had happened to me.  Apparently you both had picked up some information about my book, and maybe there were some other conversations I don’t remember now.  Judy asked me directly, and I answered honestly.  I told her a relative on my mother’s side of the family had sexually abused me between the ages of eight and fourteen.  That my mother left me alone with him and his mother regularly, so they could “baby sit” me, and it ended when I was old enough for her to feel comfortable with me staying home alone.

Judy responded with a loving and heartfelt, “Oh, Jeanie.”  We spoke about it at more length during my stay with her that visit.  She also told me she was sure you would have responded the same way.

I think about that conversation a lot.  Would you truly have responded with trust and love?  It’s possible.  I remembered that at one point before you died we had some honest conversations about my stepfather, and the horrible life my mother lived with him.  You pushed me on that, because you were picking up things in your conversations with her that maybe you’d never heard before.  I resisted being honest with you, at first, still trying to keep my mother’s secrets, but you persevered, and eventually I was opened up to you.  I’m very glad, now, that I did that. However, I was not able, during those years that were left, to take that last step with you.

I regret that a lot.  I think, looking back, you would have responded with love.  I was all you had left of the brother you never stopped missing.

When I speak to survivors these days, I sometimes try to apply the lesson I learned from not opening up to you.  I tell them that, even for survivors, there are times when we can OVER protect ourselves.  While self-protection is vital, and it’s our right to pick and choose when we share and whom we share with, keeping our secrets can sometimes do us more harm than good.  People can sometimes surprise us with goodness.  Occasionally, it may be worth the risk to find out.  Otherwise, we lose an opportunity to receive love and compassion.

I protected myself a little too much with you, Aunt Elizabeth, and I lost an opportunity that might have brought us closer.  I wish I’d been just a little braver.  That’s what remember now when I think about you.

Jean