A quick and dirty pic of our first indoor faaarrrr of the year. December 15. That’s late. I could be wrong but based on certain furtive activities by the GG, I think a big green holiday artifact might be lurking outside somewhere.

Other than that, I sure had an interesting day. It was interesting in the TeleCubelandia sense but we won’t talk about that because it wouldn’t be interesting to y’all. I did invoke the LSCHP’s name a few times, hoping he wasn’t somehow listening in to the convo because we were making a change to one of his signature designs 🐽

Toward the end of my work day, my phone lit up with a Canadian number. I hesitated for a moment but then realized it was Julie, my first cousin once removed. She is my mother’s cousin and I have never met her, although I did meet her younger brother back when I was a little kid. Her mom and granddad were commonly mentioned people in my childhood years. Aunt Lillian and Grandpa Lathers.

Her birth crossed paths with Emily’s death, the grandmother I never met. Emily drove her sister Lillian (who lived across the street in their Detroit area neighborhood) to the hospital to give birth to Julie. On her way home my grandmother Emily was killed in a car crash. I had put this together before from newspaper clippings but it wasn’t something that The Commander talked about that I remember, at least not to me. I’m not sure how we got onto that particular topic but I was happy to hear the story in Julie’s words.

Julie remembers my mom and her siblings with great fondness. They were quite a bit older (The Comm was 15 when Julie was born) and treated her with love and kindness. That leads me to believe that they didn’t displace blame for their mother’s death on her and that is a good thing. But that’s how my family(ies) operate.

Although I grew up knowing my MacMu cousins and encountered a few more distant relatives, Julie and I have never met before. I attribute this to The Commander’s marrying my dad and moving to the yooperland AND Julie’s marriage to a Canadian man and subsequent move.

We had a great time talking and have quite a bit in common, music and writing being a couple of them although she is actually a published author. I was touched when she told me my voice sounded like my mom and aunt Charlotte, both Julie’s cousins. I also found her voice to be familiar. I have encountered this phenomenon with my FinFam cousins too…

Here’s to the good parts of the internet, the ones that help us get in touch with relatives that might otherwise be lost to us forever.

Love y’all, KW 🧡🧡🧡

P.S. I may not have known my MacMu biological grandmother but I grew up with Bolette who married my granddaddy a year or so before I was born and was a wonderful step-grandmother. My new-found cousin Julie liked her too.

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