There is a house for sale, and we are going to look at it
tomorrow. Do we need another house? Perhaps yes, perhaps not.
I sat this morning as the memories of the house for sale
sprang into the present. I was there often as a child. I visited my cousin. At
one point in life I thought about writing her story. But every time I wanted to
start, I stopped. Her mother and father were still living. I could not be
honest. I could not add another burden to their sorrow. In every letter I saw
the pain, and slowly it brought my aunt to repentance and reconciliation with
God.
I remember fun, laughter, but also a certain tense
acceptance between the lady of the house and my mother. Normally I would have
stomachaches after the meals; gas pains led me to a room in solitude. We were
family. Traditions were upheld, at least around the holidays.
My cousin and I were close in age, close in spirit, in play
and intelligence. She was sweeter than I, but I had freedom to explore life.
She was like a princess in a castle.
Why did they overprotect her? Were they afraid she would
vanish from their life?
Who can blame them? They had lost two sons, both in
childbirth. She survived; she was strong and vibrant. But then her teenage
years came, and she had no friends. She became extremely shy and socially
awkward. The world was a scary place.
We went to the same high school, and she found me as a safe
island in a wild storm. We were family. We were friends. I needed her, too. Her
parents could not deny her my company. I was family, and I was reluctantly
accepted – despite my hippie-look and new-found Christian faith, despite my
political views at the time.
Who were they? He was my mother’s youngest brother, and he
married a wonderful young woman who was not to my mother’s liking. Old
aristocracy played its part, and -sad to
say – my mother was a bit full of it. My
aunt’s family were migrant workers, not land owners, and her father had taken his
own life. The two ladies accepted each other out of cultural courtesy. They
played their parts.
My cousin, though, was caught in the conflict of identity.
To please her parents, she showed solidarity with the labour-movement, but in
her heart she felt closer to my side of the family. She spoke dialect at home,
but standard Norwegian with me.
Both of our families were humanist in philosophy, but my
parents opted for an agnostic humanism, which did leave the possibility for
God’s existence, but my aunt and uncle opted for a sharp atheistic humanism,
and my aunt readily called herself a heathen.
So, in the fragile and fumbling adolescence, my cousin met
Jesus. She lived in spirit, body and soul in an intense relationship to God.
And this
created conflict.
One day I was visiting, and my cousin and I had a bite to
eat around the kitchen table, my aunt came by –and as we talked about faith,
she commented, mockingly, with a small laugh: “You can’t believe that stuff,
really?”
Towards the end of the last year in high school, around exam
times, my cousin had a mental collapse.
He life came to a stand still, as she was in different sort
of treatments, different stay in mental hospitals. She did not use her
brilliant mind; she had little training. There was no future, no hope of having
her own family. At one point she had her own place. She had lovers, often
married men. But they did not care for her. Medication made her like a
different person than her genuine self. But without it, life was volatile and
hard to handle.
After years of this status, on Friday 13, the Friday before
Easter – in Norwegian called “long Friday”, she hanged herself in her room,
with the bitter note to her parents that she felt much more at home with my
family than she ever did in her own.
So, they lost her, after all.
And they never recovered from this grief.
I wrote letter to my aunt, and she responded. My uncle grew
weak and sickly, and he died while I was abroad, and none of us were notified.
Once I visited my aunt, she brought up the time she had
mocked her daughter’s faith. She needed to let me know how that had afflicted
her. But she was still a heathen, she said. Years later she had called for my
sister to let her know that the heathen had surrendered to the living God.
So, tomorrow I will again visit the house. It is all
emptied. My aunt died some time ago. The princess prison, the grave of my
cousin, may see new life – but I will certainly pray in every room I go:
dedicate the house to the Lord God. He reigns.
Perhaps I may tell her story – more in detail; perhaps I
will let it rest.
The house is for sale, and it houses secrets.
