Saturday, November 17, 2007

Moonwater, Junie, My Aunt




They say that before we die our life flashes through our minds....I don't know about that yet, but what I do know is that when a loved one dies their life flashes through my mind, heart and soul. My Aunt, June Pierce (Moonwater) did so on October 26th 2007, as did my dad on August 26th 2007. The 26th. Two month's apart. Neither were expected to pass. The Synchronicity of the date did not escape me. It made me go a little crazy searching for the connection, the signs and the reasons. Best to leave that to time and other's more learned then I in these matters. One moment at a time is all I know for now. At this moment and time it is Junie who I am carrying in my heart and the memories of her that tug at me. They begin so very long ago.Junie, her older sister (my Mom) , my Dad and I all embarked on a 3500 hundred mile adventurous escape from Miami to Marin County, Calif. after MommyAnna (her mother and my grandmother) died from Cancer. I was about four or five years old and June was the at the tender age of fifteen years old. An awfully hard age to lose your Mother at. I think My mom thought it could be a geographical cure from the pain of the deep lose they both keenly felt. We do the best we can with what we can. June was enrolled in Tamalpias High School (which many years later I graduated from). She was so beautiful! We all moved into a beautiful little house on a very steep hillside in Mill Valley. I used to wait for her to come home every day because she was so wonderful to me. I looked up to her for so many reasons. One of my favorite memories was her teaching me to dance. I would stand on her shoes while she rocked back and forth singing, holding me and singing along to her favorite songs. She was at that age when boys melt your young heart for the first time. I remember one song in particular she loved then. It was the song by Chad and Jeremy called Dream, Dream, Dream. June would sing it out loud pretending her favorite boyfriend was singing it to her so she changed the lyrics to "June, June, June" with this dreamy look in her soft young brown eyes. Her first boyfriends' name was Martin. He had jet black hair and he wore it like Elvis Presley. They both had some fun with me one day when I told June I had a loose tooth. Mistake!! Junie had a "light bulb moment" and tied a long thread around my tooth all the time trying to reassure me that this was how to take it out. I didn't understand why it had to come out but she was absolutely gleeful about this so trusting her with my life I just kinda let it all happen. She was giggling after she and Martin had it tied to the doorknob. She told me to hold perfectly still or more like she had to hog-tie me still while Martin suddenly slammed the door shut. Ohhhh god!!! I felt the blood drain from my face as she and Martin laughed and she kept hugging me telling me how brave I was. I wasn't. But now it brings such a soft smile to my heart, at this small slice of life, that encapsulates so many other moments, strung together like pearls, that I wear of the memories my beautiful Aunt June. One of my favorite pictures of her from that time period is of Junie wearing a lavender dress with a full skirt. Pinned amid ruffles on the dress on her heart side was a corsage of sixteen sugar cubes. Standing outside on that steep stairway she was looking upwards, life full ahead of her and many hearts for her to break and love.Large gaps of time slip away but love provides the continuity to compensate. Somehow Junie ended up back in Miami where I was sent to spend parts of summer vacations as I grew up. Suddenly time speeds forward to her being an "adult" and "married" (to Gene Langford) and a MOTHER!! She had two son's named Chris and Timmy. Looking back they looked like two cute little baby bear cubs to me at the time. I had a lot of fun going to the speedway with them where "Uncle Gene" raced drag cars. It was all so exciting to me at that time. June wore her hair pinned in with curls on her head or she would wear it pulled in a half ponytail. I loved her hair. It always smelled so good and her hugs were even better.After so many years leap ahead I find myself at the same age as she was as a Mother, so very very young, and taking a train to Oregon to visit her. I think I was nineteen or twenty. Sheeesh, is that an age give-away! She now had more little cherubs, Cherie, Elana and Adam. There was always a pot of something that smelled wonderful cooking. People were always coming and going. She was magnetic. The earth Mother. I wanted to stay forever. And her laughter!! God was it wonderful! Infectious, lyrical, loud and so warm and real. I remember watching her and my Mom secretly roaring over the silliest things. Picnics on huge warm boulders beside a beautiful river. Kids everywhere, love everywhere and "everywhere" was that warm dream world called life!But time has this funny way of fast forwarding.....too fast. Suddenly I am married and bringing my husband and children to Seattle to visit her. I wanted to move there with my family so I dragged them all from Miami to convince them this is God's country because this is where my family is, this is where we belonged. Junie and I hadn't seen each other in like, well, too many years. She gave me an address on a street where we would meet. I left my family sitting in a stuffed rented van and I waited anxiously on that street where we were to meet. I didn't wait long. I looked all around for a few minutes until suddenly I saw that beautiful warm smile of hers that made me cry with such joy and relief as she ran across the street to me. We embraced and all life was right again. Suddenly she made all the fragments of myself I had left behind come together again. We sobbed and hugged and laughed all at once. What ever damage life had done to either of us had dissolved with love in our embrace. She was my Junie. Loved. Missed. Adored by me all my life. Here now! All was well again.I realized that I had always carried her in my heart no matter people, places or things. She made me feel the same. Today, I am weary. I miss her. I know a new journey has begun for her and a new relationship begins for us. A purely spiritual relationship now. I learned this when my brother crossed over. That was the first time I experienced the death of someone I was physically and emotionally bound to. In love with. Grieved over. And yet.......taught how to live by the very experience. I wonder if she ever knew how deeply I loved her. I hope I showed her enough that I did. I guess I feel like I should have made sure she knew. This is hard part for me.I know there are five loving beautiful children she brought into this world that is making it a better world each day. These are my family, my "tribe", my blood. They are helping me to feel joy and celebrate Junie's life and her new journey each time I talk to Cherie or Elana. I love you Junie...My Aunt......Moonwater....EarthMother. I still carry you in my heart.

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