My cousin Judy

Once upon a time in the real world, there was a little girl named Judy, who was my cousin. She was two years older than I was, and we lived in the same city. Her mother was my father's sister, so we visited and played together a lot. She had some great toys, completely different than mine at home.

Not long after her fifth birthday, she died of a congenital heart defect that no one knew she had. I was three. I no longer remember what she looked like, but this one incident afterwards is still with me, 61 years later. 

Mom had tried to tell me that Judy was gone forever. I know this though I don't remember the conversation. I'm sure it was down-to-earth and direct, and had something about angels and being in heaven with Jesus, because we were Christian. On a visit to my aunt's house some time after the funeral, this happened. 

I remember Mom and my aunt standing in the living room talking. From my perspective the room was mostly carpet, with grown-up shoes and legs, and a long way up faces. Mom and my aunt stood and murmured to each other, and I wandered down the hall to Judy's bedroom, still trying to fully understand what had happened to her. 

It was no longer her bedroom. The furniture, the pictures on the walls, everything was different. It looked like a grownup's room, like a guest bedroom. Nothing of Judy's was there. Shocked and disturbed, I went back down the hall to a closet. It may have been a coat closet, because I can remember garments hanging. Judy kept some of her toys there, including one I was very fond of playing with. I opened the door, and they were gone. Nothing but the clothes and a recently-vacuumed carpet.

"Where are the toys?" I asked, looking at Mom and my aunt who still stood murmuring together.

All conversation stopped, and grownups stared at me with stunned faces. My aunt froze open-mouthed. Mom looked mortified.Mom took me into another room and tried again to explain that she had died.

I began to cry. Something truly frightening had happened to Judy. Unable to express the sense of loss and fear, I sobbed, "They could have kept her toys." It was the closest I could come to what I felt. It wasn't really the toys.

I realized eventually that my aunt had rid the house of anything pertaining to Judy, including all pictures. Nothing remained of her. They never mentioned her name again. It was as if she had never existed.

Now, 61 years later, I can articulate what I felt then. I realize that people grieve differently, that perhaps the only way my aunt could cope was to try to completely forget Judy's brief life had even happened, but I can't help feeling horror at that. She did exist, she loved and was loved. To just wipe her away still feels wrong.

When I lose someone I love, I cling to their things, to their pictures, to any gifts they've given me. The objects become the material embodiment of memories. My mother's good jewelry, what little she had of it. Her dining room set and rocking chair. Family pictures. Things Dad gave me. Things Uchol gave me. Things we bought on vacations, things from South Korea I added to the house decor. Items like that aren't just stuff, they're fragments of people I can no longer touch. As much as losing people I love hurts me, I want to remember them. I can't understand not wanting to.

So here I am, probably at the end of my own life, and I remember you still, cousin Judy.