What happens when you discover the ones you love best are intent on hurting you?  And what if, they are your family?  This book focuses on secrets, mental illness and childhood wounds.  Exquisitely written, the book reveals a family and a community still reeling from a past tragic event that threatens to be repeated today.

 Marnie and Diana are sisters, born into a dysfunctional family and they spend much of their early years clinging to each other for safety.  The father has left for greener pastures, thus leaving them with their mother, a brilliant artist.  Unfortunately, the mother is also mentally unstable and really unfit to be a mother.  Yet somehow the girls make it into adulthood on the kindness of their neighbors and own innate talents. 

 Both sisters battle their own memories and fears of turning into their Mother in some way, big or small.  Almost every woman I know fears this pull of becoming, “just like her.”  And when mental illness complicates the picture, this pull becomes even more real and frightening…

 I know this family.  Yes, a more extreme version of mine, but I recognized their mother - a confusing mix of love and cruelty.  Her intentions are to be a supportive, thoughtful mother, yet her fears cloud her words and deeds.  Her words and actions begin as support, only to twist oddly, thus inflicting pain… 

 I know this mother.  My mother has always been one to point out any flaws or mistakes I make because in her mind she is “helping me.”  She is revealing to me all my “not enoughs” before someone else can.  Instead of being my biggest fan growing up, she was my critic, “judging - to protect me from the others.”  Needless to say, this was crippling.  By trying to protect me from possibly failing or emotional pain, she guaranteed I felt “less then” because she always found fault.

 Interestingly, I know I am not alone in this dynamic.  When I went to college, I soon realized many of my friends also struggled with this type of dynamic with one or both of their parents as well.  Gratefully I also discovered my Mom may be difficult, highly dysfunctional,  but she is not the worst of them.   And I also was reminded; her unintended cruelty was always mixed with love.  (This does not excuse the offenses, rather to give them context…)

 People are not perfect.  Some battle demons daily to keep a tenuous grasp on reality.  Some days they succeed and some days they do not.  Some days I don’t hold it together and I fall into despair, only to crawl my way out later when I find the light again.    

 This book begins in the dark.  The characters crawl around each other and their collective issues blindfolded.  Each wounded in part, only to discover healing in the light of truth - as it is for each of us.

Recently several clients and some dear friends have come to me struggling with the deaths of loved ones.  Death is often a topic each of us would like to avoid – like a dirty, little secret that if we just ignore it long enough, maybe it will go away.  However it doesn’t…It just waits for each of us.

I have an easy relationship with death.  I believe in a Christian model, however, I also believe we come back over and over.  Each of us has certain work to do in our lifetime along with the free choice to realize that work or not.  I believe most of the people involved in my life today, I have been with before in previous lives.   

A few years ago my step-sister died.  She died horribly – alone.  At first there were hints of a suicide and that is what distressed me.  I was worried her soul was lost and wandering – not knowing the grace that was available to her.  I learned of her death on a Sunday night and that Monday I had already planned to visit a mentor to train on Mediumship. 

 So the next day I went to my mentor very upset – worried that somehow Nicky was lost.  We set the space and called Nicky to us.  Immediately she came and she was so sad, but her first words were about suicide.  It was not a suicide, but a mistake – she just wanted to feel better with a little more drugs.  That was Nicky.  After she made the “no suicide message” clear, you could feel her sadness and she taught me about free will.

 She had said in this life she thought she could do it – beat the addictions, but she couldn’t.  She spoke of the love that was in her life always (family and friends) but that she never accepted while she was alive.  She helped me to understand each of us has choices.  Nicky chose drugs over and over – she couldn’t help herself and that is when I found peace.

 I understood each of us has our own “cross to bear.”  Nicky didn’t choose the drugs because of any one person.  No, this was her life, her choices and I could love her still.  I remembered her as a child and making friends with everyone – she accepted each person as beautiful and interesting.  This probably led to problems as an adult, but I know the very essence of Nicky’s soul is love – not perfect, but love all the same. 

 When we closed the session that day, I knew Nicky would be ok.  I believed in her – her soul.  I know her beauty and kindness will come back again and we will meet again.  Maybe not in this lifetime, but I know she is never lost from me.  She speaks with angels now, across the thin veil – healing her wounded places and biding her time until she comes back again.