Dear Inez,

You must have heard me talking to a friend about you last week. Today while looking for a file I happened upon your birth certificate. You must have known that as an astrologer I’d want to get to know you through the horoscope. It took me two years in your house before I grabbed for something on the shelf in the closet and discovered it.

The check you left appeared much earlier as we lifted the carpet to find near-perfect hardwood floors. I may have a necklace of yours as well but I can’t recall where I put it. Oh, and with the necklace in the small trinket box was your widower’s fishing license from the 1940s or 1950s. I misplaced that as well.

Speaking of your widower, I searched his name and learned he died not five months ago. Many have been passing during this unusual energy; in fact, a friend just passed away in February.

According to the obituary, your widower and you were married only two years before you left while transiting Uranus and Neptune were just about to cross your ascendant. Your first house was in another realm I see.

Did my sudden attraction to perfume result from your influence? I recall discussing you back when I found the check and necklace and somehow included in the conversation my new love of perfume when a friend proclaimed, “Well that Inez certainly had an influence.”

You probably would have liked those friends as you had Uranus and moon conjunct in Pisces in your horoscope. Were you religious and mystical? Imaginative you must have been with Jupiter, Neptune, sun and Mercury in Leo and Uranus and the moon in Pisces.

Did you delight others with storytelling? I bet you were a fine mimic of others’ behaviors. Acting and expressing the feelings of others would have been natural to you. Did you do any professional acting?

In the early part of the 20th century as you were growing up, spiritualism was quite rampant. Did that interest you? Did you take part in a séance? Or maybe that was scary and you stayed in the arena of more traditional religion.

Your widower had Neptune in Leo and Uranus in Pisces so activated your imagination, intuition and spirituality. Did the two of your feel a connection from the first time you met?

My grandmother was born about five months before you. She had a difficult early life as her mother passed away when she was just 18 months old. In those days when the mother died children were referred to as “half-orphan” and she and her brother were sent to an orphanage.

Natal Saturn opposes your Uranus/moon conjunction suggesting issues with the mother. Maybe she, like my grandmother’s mother, was not present during your early life? Or she was unreliable in some way? In those days, women often died in childbirth. Natal Pluto in Cancer in the 6th house adds to this by suggesting great transformation to the home life.

Your Leo sun suggests you were close to your father. Your birth certificate says he was a farm hand. Did you grow up on a farm? Did you like to garden?

Six of your planets were in the 7th house so you must have loved people. Did you host large events at your home?

Why in 1955 did you request a copy of the birth certificate that is now in my possession? Did you need it to get a passport? Did you need it for a religious ceremony?

Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto were all transiting Leo at that time and transiting Neptune was in your 9th house (in Libra). Maybe a partner took you on a trip abroad? If you did take a trip, I hope you had fun.

It’s getting late and I must say goodbye for now. I’m putting the birth certificate back where I keep it. I look forward to happening upon it again.