Surviving Bessie (The Bessie Series Book 2) - Jody Overend

Surviving Bessie (The Bessie Series Book 2) by Jody Overend

Book excerpt

Ravenspond, Ontario 2015

A year has passed since those initial revelations of my Great Aunt Bessie. Once again, on my birthday, this one being my sixteenth, I sit in her garden. My ears are glued to her wild tales of how she traveled to another dimension back in 1972 with her best friend Ash, tried on body images of the famously deceased, and met up with her late relatives, among other jaw-dropping adventures.

Grantie, as I affectionately call her, sips her glass of white wine, no ice, with a tabby cat at her feet. As always, she wears her gaudy 4-leaf clover brooch. Today, it’s attached to her faded Joni Mitchell T-shirt. She believes the jewelry is magical and travels through time and space.

I ask her why she doesn’t want to share her stories with her sons and grandkids. And she tells me that they have heard bits and pieces, and frankly, they think she’s a little nutsy. “They just roll their eyes at me. Besides, they’ve all gone fishing for salmon off the coast of British Columbia with Papa.” She grins. “So, like last summer, I’ll share my stories with you.”

Grantie takes a long sip and leans back. “The late sixties and early seventies were a fantastic time to be young,” she tells me, not for the first time. “No cell phones, no 24-hour news, no social media to torment the vulnerable. We lived as carefree as butterflies, flitting from experience to experience. Ash and I were the closest of friends from the time we were toddlers. And then I met Jason, Jason Wallet, when I was eight years old on the skating rink, and he became my companion, my brother, my teacher, and then my first love.” She giggles. “He was determined we would marry and live on the parcel of land his Uncle Peter had left him; and build a house for us down on the old road out of town.”

Grantie sips her wine, leaning forward to look me in the eye. “But I was only fifteen, restless, and full of curiosity about the world. And it was full-blown summer with all that sunshine beaming down, and my head full of mischief.” She grins. “So, Ash and I, we took off on a hitchhiking trip right across Canada. Everybody was doing that in those days. Nobody worried about a thing. We got all the way to Thunder Bay, across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and over the border into the foothills of Alberta when disaster struck. And my world as I knew it ended. Ash was dead. Jason was dead. And I, somehow survived, although I often wished I hadn’t.”

I get up to give her a hug, wishing I could take all her pain away.

“No need to fuss. It’s a long time ago now. I’ve learned to live with it. You have no choice, really. You either learn to live with your grief and regrets, or you die.” She sips her wine. “As you can see, I eventually chose to live.”

Grantie jumps up to run into her cottage, returning with a photograph, and handing it to me. It’s of three fresh-faced teenagers, leaning against a fence: a tall lanky fellow with strange, sticking-up sandy hair, a lean and long-legged copper-skinned beauty, and a redheaded girl with freckles and a wide grin.

“Jason, Ash, and you,” I say. “Way back when.”

Grantie wipes a tear from her eyes. “Okay, so did you bring your pen and notepad? Years from now, when I give you the word, maybe you’ll publish my stories.”

She touches her 4-leaf clover brooch, which she always does when the pain returns. As she once told me, grief softens over time, but it never leaves you. Threads of it weave themselves into the intricate fabric that becomes the rest of your life.