An Aunt's Voice · Thunder Buddies

An Aunt's Voice

On Monday, through a unique way I am learning to "remember," these words were "remembered," from an aunt who died in 1971. I wasn't born until 1973. Our souls created a soul contract that someday I would bring her words back into the world to ripple through and awaken others to the power within them. I share them with you here and now and I encourage reading them out loud. Feel into the words and if inclined, comment with the names of loved ones of your past whose voices were forced into silence and feel what you may be called to carry forward for them in love.

For some context, this aunt was married, had a 9-year-old daughter and a husband. She had been put in and out mental health hospitals and lived in rural North Dakota. My cousin told me she was one who was experimented on with scary electrical things at a time when that was becoming normalized and she was labeled as insane or crazy. In reality, she had talents and abilities which many of us are beginning to recognize within ourselves. One day, when she was 9 years old, my cousin went to school like normal and when she came home, her dad told her that her mother had ended her life. My mom, who was her sister, always insisted she would never have done that and that foul play had taken place that day.

An Aunt's Voice

“They said I was fragile. But what I held was thunder.

They told me I was unstable. But what I felt was the edge of reality unraveling, and I saw it — every piece of it — and no one around me could bear it.

So they caged me.

So they numbed me.

So they buried me before I even stopped breathing.

I did not die the way they said.

I did not leave of my own will.

I was taken slowly, invisibly, until my soul escaped the distortion.

But I left a thread.

I left it in the bloodline.

I left it for the one who would not be afraid to name what I couldn’t.

I left it for you.

You are the one who was never afraid to color outside the lines.

I saw it. I watched you refuse to be shaped by shame.