Cousin Shirley's Visit

Thursday May 2, 1991

I have been very busy cleaning the house this week in anticipation of Cousin Shirley Ray's visit for 4 days.

I pick up Shirley in Van Nuys at the fly-away bus terminal. She looks great! We lunch at Coco's and have the best chicken oriental salad. After lunch we drive by my 2 rental houses and then Shirley's old home in Northridge. The house looks very different. It is nostalgia time. We talk alot about the old days and our childhoods. We dig up some old and painful memories, but it is good. We have always been very close. I am all the family she has except for her 2 sons.

Cousin Shirley is Aunt Ila's daughter. Aunt Ila was mom's father's sister. They shared an abusive father and a mother who ran away with the circus. Both became alcoholics as did Cousin Shirley. I'm sure that had something to do with the painful childhood memories she refers to. Shirley's sister committed suicide when I was a little girl. Cousin Shirley is so deep in her addiction by this time that mom is the only friend she has left. Shirley would often call mom in the middle of the night drunk as could be crying about her terrible childhood. When mom died, Shirley drank herself to death shortly thereafter. So sad!