she was bragging about how much money she made. she was uninterested in anybody else besides herself. and she said, i m not wendy anymore. shawna seemed to have been around off and on for quite a while. she even called herself that in a letter she wrote her parents when she was just 23. shawna has magic, she wrote. so two wendys? wendy was the good mother, conservative, hard worker, wanted to save the world. while shawna was the wild child. she didn t want to be tied down. she wanted to have a good time. she felt restrained by the bonds of marriage and family. maybe it was shawna who got on that bus, or perhaps oshanna? yes, three wendys.
she was drawn to spirituality and for a time to a little known religious group who called itself the emissaries of divine light. i remember her saying that she felt she felt at home there. she did that, though. she religion bounced searching for somewhere to belong. and then finally she and the family seemed to find it. a place to belong. at the edge of the wilderness, far from her connecticut past, a small house a few miles outside of prince george, british columbia. denis took a job at a local lumber mill. wendy found work off and on as a substitute teacher at the local high school. that might have been the whole story really except, well, every drama needs a catalyst, right? one day in 1995, denis returned from work at the sawmill and told him family how a log hit his shoulder, knocked him out cold. when he tried to return to work,
mom, hurry! our show s gonna start soon! i promised i wouldn t miss the show and mommy always keeps her promises. oh, no! seriously? hmm! it s not the same if she s not here. oh. -what the. oh my goodness! i don t suppose you can sing, can you? the snow s comin down -mommy? i m watching it fall watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 it was late summer, a hot morning in saskatchewan when wendy and denis ratte drove off to run some errands. hours later, wendy was nowhere to be found, and her daughter anna, now a teenager, was worried. when i called the police to say i don t know where she is, can you help, their only question was has it been 24
disengagement from reality. she didn t understand that her disappearances were hurtful to her family members. didn t get that at all. so it went on and on until one day she turned up and announced she was getting married to denis. the family was overjoyed. our family thought that he was a very good influence on her and the fact that she chose to take a chance and take her away was nothing short of amazing. wendy became a dedicated wife, teacher, artist, mother. but there were always issues. mood swings for one thing. some days she would be so happy, and other days the world would just weigh down on her. but denis sister dionne said that what she observed in saskatchewan when anna and gabriel were still young weren t
she came to light sometimes at seances with anna and gabriel. i don t know if they were real or not real. they seem seemed real at the time. she was in touch with a spirit, an ancient spirit with named oshanna. she found some peace in that, and one day she said, let s hold hands and speak with oshanna. i remember her transforming into this character. this different self. it was a surprise to me. i didn t know she did this. she was a completely different person. she wasn t responding in the way my mother usually does. so everybody was looking for wendy, said gabriel, when really, maybe they should have been looking for one of the shawnas. i think that she had the capacity to pick up and go. she might have reached that breaking point where she just thought or she didn t think, just snapped and just left.