Healing Trip to Oregon, Washington & Canada July 2025

I owe my gratitude to my Beloved Husband. He wanted to take me to meet the other folks on my Father’s side in which he discouraged us not to engage with because of his own reasons or conflicts…perhaps unhealed wounds and lack of communication to peacefully understand the vulnerability a human has denied him as a child into young adulthood.

Firt

FIRST BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Made a trip to Portland, Oregon. This was a town 20 miles from Creswell, Oregon. I only remember that town name because my Grandparents …my mother’s Mom and StepDad and her StepSister (my age adopted as a baby in Guam) had lived. My Dad’s Sister asked him to leave the Airforce to care for their father since he could handle my rambunctious Grandpa.

Although, I was 8 years old and we lived in their house. It was filled with gardens and fruit trees and a worm farm to encourage my Grandpa to fish. My Grandmother canned pickles, peaches and made ginger fruit jams. She was a seamstress since young and old school theater starlet and dancer as well as Saledictorian of her school. She had to sew because she was tiny like many Asian Filipina women for clothes to fit her. She sewed us stuffed pillow frogs for Xmas and baked cookies. She made the best cinnamon rolls, stuffing and chicken and Hawaiian can bread and all types of Asian foods. My Grandpa was a cook in the Navy too. They never cooked together.

There were forests after a row of backyard neighbors and they were Mormons and had disabilities and married and had 8 kids. The wife always admired my Mother and tried to get wigs and her teeth done like her. Her youngest boy ate worms…omg and laughed to gross me and my aunty and brothers out.

My Dad was trying to find work and found it difficult. My Grandpa was a drinker working in the sawmill and drank at the local bar. Sometimes, my Grandma joined but one day she didn’t and he came home drunk as we slept and slapped her calling her a terrible name. That triggered my Dad and the next few days I felt he would want to leave. He had a habit of just up and leaving. My Mother and him lost my sister a few years ago in a plane flying back to Washington from Bermuda. I saw her spirit leave and was glad but soon learned it was not a good thing. I saw my Dad running around asking for a nurse or doctor as my sister struggled and stopped breathing. Then we circled and landed and the doctor lost his license and the hospital closed when he was forced to include a senator while young in his Cub Scouts to ask for help and take my sister’s  body home. I never saw evidence of her existence until 60 when my younger brother got her crucifix worn from white to metal and shoe…etc.

Anyway, Oregon had a forest and lots of tree houses…abandoned. I told my older brother to not climb into one unless he tested it so he wouldn’t get hurt…Just as I said that…he fell and broke his arm and held it and we went to the house and my parents had to drive him to Portland, Oregon to the nearest hospital for X-Rays and a cast on it. Then my Grandpa was asking one night when he wanted to go to the bathroom…which one. He was in tears and my Dad told him to stop and leave his son alone and not talk to him that way. The next day my Dad erupted and left and wanted us to leave with him. My Mother refused naturally as there was no plan or home to live or income to do this and start over again. We joined him later to go to Tucson, Az where I met my Husband til now. However, Oregon had beautiful forests, poppyfields and snow at times. 

Back to the trip: We found a souvenir restaurant and baker near the salmon hatcheries in Oregon with some Native vendors of fruits and Salmon and smoked sturgeon. Chinook salmon and some jerky was found in Or discovering towns, waterfall as the smith house that overlooked the town in all directions and the Horsetail Falls that led us to a trail and past the cherry farms…we had not seen cherry trees before in so much and apricots were delicious and in season. The strawberries just finished their season and were so fresh and tasty as well in Or and Wa. We would hear Hawaiian radio stations in Washington and Native Radios Stations in Canada.

Before all of this venture living in Oregona, I started my 3rd grade there for a year; remembering Fairchild Airforce Base. Where we lived since my Dad had moved from Othello, Washington, visited Spokane where my mother’s parents lived. Pre K was fun to me and I told my Mother I would be all right. There were a set of twins, one albino and one not of girls that loved braiding my hair. I fell asleep on the bus and the bus driver was nice enough to take me to my front door.

We learned in the basement to shoot bows and guns into a bullseye but my younger brother was too young. My Dad fought in Viet Nam and a high rank thought my Mother was a foreigner woman going to sleep with him and he told her he would transfer my Dad to a dangerous place she would never see him again. Big mistake. My Mother was raised by nuns for 13 years during the Filipino-Jap war in the 1940s where her father died and they lost their rooming house and Grandmother enroute to safety and her brother lived with the entertainers. She used her martial arts and pushed him outside the screen door and front door and told him to get out. I came home to a mangled screen door asking what happened and Mom said, “The mailman got mad that he couldn’t get the mail in the slot because the door was locked.”

Then moving to Bermuda for a year and a half where my younger brother had dual citizenship as Mom was pregnant with him and gave that up joining the Army. My sister was Angelica Carol Short and died midflight and after that trauma and senator’s intervention…we got to bring her home. We stayed in Fairchaid Airforce Base a bit but then moved as Grandpa Short was almost dying 2 to 3 times while he was on missions in Viet Nam and my Dad did prayer vigils with the rosary til he resumed strength.

With these childhood memories; I always wondered why we didn't get to see our sister buried? Why didn't we see our grandparents buried? Why didn’t we get to know our aunts, uncles and their children and cousins in Washington? Nor see our Aunt and Uncle’s graves and so we did. Dad would always be angry about something to do with money and too uppity and not be able to write to them to thank an Uncle and Aunt sending money or gifts to us a couple times a year but I was able to write to my Mother's Parents. I did ceremony and mediumship messages to the family for them if they had questions.

So on this trip; I got to see my cousin and her husband and stepcousin and her stepbrother because their Mother was my Aunt and penpal for many years. I got to meet my step cousin’s wife and kids and the next generation and their old houses and naval yard where my aunty worked as bookkeeper and that my Uncle, older brother of my Father was close to her. That Grandma baby sat her til her mother, my Aunty’s shift completed. I did find out the differences between the brown skin grandchildren and the white grandchildren. My Grandmother made it very clear that I was expected to do laundry, know how to cook, shine shoes and chores at 8 years old but not demanded of my brothers soon to learn that my Dad was raised that way. They were shocked that Grandma talked to me and Mom a certain way. My cousin didn’t know how to cook, she said. I was surprised because my Grandma babysat her and never mentioned chores and cooking to her and that my Grandma only knew how to bake chicken, mashed potatoes and salad and cobbler…especially peach. That was our Sunday meal at Grandma's only to find out that was the only thing she knew how to cook?!

I also learned that my cousin’s husband had pancreatic cancer and died. She remarried now 25 years of marriage and I call him the Chef ..Mr. Mike. He cooks very well and makes awesome paella. 

Our first day was making our own pizzas and he baked each in their outside pizza oven they built together. The whole family that lived there came. It was so great.

To match the special effort that Mike made paella for dinner…we had picked a crate of cherries in Ridge Crest Oregon at Grenier’s Farm The owners were a husband and wife had 2 grown sons for 25 years and made some port to test out. She gave us a bottle of port we left with my cousin. Such a beautiful home they made together with records and albums of history of our family side with crest, castle in Ireland 1066 A.D. and moving to England to Germany where the Kaiser’s or Keiser’s owned the steel mills but Hitler wanted their supplies for the war. So the exchange of their lives for the steele worked out.

Later, the family came to the US as the Newlin family had to do with Penn with the U. S.  constitution's acquaintance. They leave out a bit more of my Grandma Short…her last name was Taylor and they met in Kansas…where my Dad said one of their ancestors ended up married from the Osage Nation and we had Blackfoot and Cherokee in us. Then his parents moved from Kansas to Bremerton, Washington to start again. 

In the years of 2013-2014, a cousin, Shawn T. Short in South Carolina contacted my Aunty to continue the genealogy and he actually took photos of each page of the typed records of my Grandpa John Henry Short but some of the cds or dvds cannot be opened. 

Aunty had detailed photos with labels, names and dates in chronological order if not in an album. My Dad had an album of Scouts and other things and articles of his youth. My cousin found a picture of my parents actually smiling at their wedding reception at my Aunty’s house with the same punch bowl and silverware my Mother had that my younger brother has. The wall clock in that picture belongs to my step cousin which I called Bobby…since I knew him as a young toddler and 6 year old in the in between years from getting out of Viet Nam and after Washington and before moving to Oregon a couple of years then finally Tucson, Arizona where I finished High School and some college and moved to Los Angeles, Ca with my husband married in 1983 as he studied fashion design and I worked at various offices like the Jewish Federation of Great Los Angeles in the Campaign Fundraiser Dept. 

We ended up in England after 3 years trying to start a career for my husband and I volunteered at the Ismaili Centre in Kensington Square…Meeting lords and ladies and the Aga Khan and his staff and loyal followers. Then we moved to Atlanta, Georgia to start again and have our first born

And later our daughter. All these years visiting Tucson, Arizona and not even thinking our Washington family would want to meet us. Although we attempted my Aunty in 2009 but there was a misunderstanding and she died 2016 and we kept writing to each other.

This was a new beginning for me the last 2 years as I separated and learned a lot about myself, my life and path and so did my husband after both our mothers died closely in 2020 from Covid and we had it a few times and then we had to close our healing with the arts business called “Healium Center Foundation, Inc.” We did a lot for the community to transform with being real, joyful and honest. People self transformed by igniting the positive possibilities of inner creativity and traveling in the dark to the light was possible. So did we in a way; it was our turn both my husband did that. I am famous for his books “The Healium Way” and “Unfuck Yourself” and then we kept healing individually and together and reunited…as a couple, as people and as a family with our children.

We learned a lot of old expectations and habits were outdated and we needed to upgrade ourselves by letting go of the old self. It was painful and cathartic at the same time. Exploring our inner questions made public but helped with the being in full presence as we advised others to be. We the inspirers became inspired and pursued without knowing we were transforming something so necessary and so needed in a relationship to ourselves, a couple and our children. Our son became closer and the uniter, hopeful and his painful feelings and his love for all of us. He loved his sister so much that the turmoil of her world turned upside down and part of my leaving affected her. I couldn’t keep holding back for anyone anymore. I needed my space to do the work as Spirit told me a year ahead…You will have to make some difficult choice of leaving him to grow and it will be up to you both when you will be together as one or as friends. If you don’t leave him; you have been praying for his understanding of you. Not everyone will understand me and my gifts entirely or my honesty but it’s not to hurt but help.

Back to the present trip in Washington. It was a wonderful trip as we traveled from Bremerton beautiful Mount Rainer, with lots of hawks and ravens here and there through sleepy sad Spokane and to my birth place…Othello, Washington and saw the still standing hospital to learn their was an Airforce Base doing surveillance on Russian planes…!!! That’s where my older brother and myself were born and Dave was in the oven on the way to Bermuda by then. Our sister would’ve been Bermudan and USA citizenship…sadly passed from a lung defect unmonitored by the cheating doctor with the nurse.

We ended up seeing wheatfields and crop pickers in Othello and many Mexican workers and restaurants everywhere. We made it to Idaho and flatter piece of land and stayed in Sandpointe, Idaho at a hotel to arrive when a street fair was ending and ate Indian faux food and then passed a bar and met friendly folks…whose not friendly hugging us after a few drinks and please pray for a single mother getting healthcare for her highly autistic daughter to make it to Savannah and have proper treatment and care and quality of life. We met the bar owner for 16 years who used to do yoga and meditation and retreats in the past and makes vegan foods and encouraged her to do so again.

So we left from Idaho driving to Canada and into Vancouver, BC and stayed in a place called Banff at Beaver Cabins….couple of nights. I ate Irish pub food which was great. Beautiful tourist spots and many lakes like Louise, Emerald, Waterfalls and spots and Icefield Glaciers. We rode the tram called Norquay Skylift to see the whole of Banff and met Bart, an 80 year old friendly man who told us about the many lakes and Icefields where you can touch a glacier. We went and played our elk drum and had others play to ask for unconditional love and send it out to all in honor and gratitude of healing all of us part of the divine plan.  Upon getting off the Norquay a ground hog...one of my power animals came to greet me as we were returning back to the skylift to the other side to see the sights Bart mentioned. He said, “You brought the sun. Great day to see as much as you can.”

We met a Canadian couple playing our instruments at the Icefields and then we saw the Takakkaw Falls, which means ‘magnificent’ in Cree. There were so many towns/reservations of different tribes as we drove more here and there. Then we decided to go to Kamloops and Native town and stay at an Ismaili owned hotel who knew my husband's African cousin in Africa who is in India.  We bought Salmon jerkies. I saw a Native family trying to buy gas and the elder came into the station telling the grade with red and blue paint on his face and braids. That was so cool to me…The cashier asked if we had a Native Status card for a discount and we said, “No.” My husband said, “Why can’t we get a discount; doesn’t my wife look native?” She smiled and didn’t want to be rude and said, “I would need the id number to punch in." He quickly relinquished his request with a smile and we all laughed about it.

After 17 years taking our young kids with us to Harrison Hot Springs we thought it would be a great spontaneous treat but they didn’t allow day passes anymore only if you stayed as a family or guest. It was a farm town area in nowhere and now over populated and all the thermal hot springs are unnaturally pumped into swimming pools…and so many tourist attractions and overcrowding of housing now. So we skipped the hot springs.  

Then, we bought along the farm side some fresh blueberries and raspberries since it was the season. All the food in Canada and Washington was so fresh and better. And we stayed in N. Vancouver near The Shipyards…overlooking the seabus and naval ship and boat coming to dock to eat at fine restaurants. The next day was Canada Day …July 1st. People in crowds. We had our coffee at the best coffee and gelato place called “Dulce Amore” and enjoyed it. We had lots of different fish…a butter fish called ‘Sablefish’ and another kind of steelhead fish instead of trout it was Salmon. People wearing Canadian headgear, shirts, socks, hats and costumes…eating and drinking but noticed Covid 19 had robbed people of expressing their feelings and looking each other in the eye and saying hello and being friendly. It was a worldwide thing but they were bouncing back in Germany and Europe faster than overseas brothers and sisters. One of our new friends was an Iranian mother and daughter. As we spoke to each other a Canadian family was staring at us. I was only looking to see if they’d make eye contact to greet them. The Iranian young lady said they don’t like that. I remember sharing with the waitress the beautiful natural places and animals in nature we love to travel and the man at the other table told us to shhhhhhhh. We ignored him and enjoyed ourselves.

The Iranian friends talked and we talked and I shared it is a sickness for generations when you don’t laugh, talk, sing, dance, play music or create then you are convinced an addiction to plant or pharmaceuticals will help all the time without making effort to move forward once you open the door go through and keep discovering in a playful inner child discerning heart. They agreed.

It was a beautiful day and back to Oregon we went and flew back to Ga.

Unfortunately, we got a cold from old airplane air but we will mend. Well, that’s my story. I shared with my cousins and my brothers and nieces and nephews our photos of our journey and visits. It was a healing journey and visitation and thanked my husband for thinking of this trip.