The first person I ever saw as a real life princess was my cousin Emily. She married my cousin Tom when I was about 10 years old and it was the first wedding I remember clearly: gleaming white with red roses, a beautiful long bouquet of flowers, and a dance where my parents let me stay up really late (in my eyes) and dance with my cousins. Emily was glamorous and joyful and radiant. That day, I decided I wanted my own wedding to be that beautiful and fun.

Today, we said goodbye to Emily at a beautiful ceremony filled with pictures and flowers and tons of family and friends. She was diagnosed with dementia, some sort of early form, and she passed away earlier this month at age 55.

The last time I saw her was at a baby shower, and it was apparent she didn’t quite follow what was going on. She said “hi Robyn” to me and I asked her how she was doing and she said not so well because she was losing her mind. I could tell she was scared and sad. Later, another cousin asked me what she had said, and after I reconstructed the conversation, she seemed surprised because apparently Emily had pretty much stopped using people’s names by then. I always wondered why she had somehow remembered my name; it could be that she was still on Facebook at that point and I was (and still am) posting a lot. She would “like” a lot of my posts. I would always “like” her posts when they came across my feed, too. I am thankful for technology to help create that one little thread of connection.

I am holding my cousin Becky (Emily’s only daughter) and her family in my heart. I am sad for the world’s loss, but believe she was released from a body that held her back for so long at the end, and that is perhaps a blessing. She is free. ❤️