When my grandmother died, I didn't know what was going to happen to me. Given that she was my primary caregiver, the world was a scary place. I don't know how or why, but my Aunt Evelyn stepped in and was there for me in the best way that she could have been. She had her own family to take care of, but I came to look at her as something of a mother figure.
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| My aunt and uncle with their first grandchild |
As it was, she had been a staple in my life growing up. She and my uncle and cousins would often spend the holidays with us.
I sometimes spent the night at her house and watched as she was creative in all kinds of ways. For a while she even had a homemade chocolate business. One year she even made a piano out of chocolate for a woman who had helped me get through a tumultuous 7th grade who I think also taught piano. She had even made some delicious chocolate covered cherries and strawberries.
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| Delicious German Ginger Snap Recipe |
She introduced me to a hypnotist long before I ever thought of being one myself.
She was a Camp Fire Girls leader, and we took many trips, and did many things as I was one in her troop. I remember sitting in her home, at her kitchen table, learning script.
I remember the sound of the train going by, as she didn't live far from a suburban train station. There was something about being in her home that very comforting. At Christmas time she would always go crazy baking and decorating, with the decorations often staying up well into the new year.
She encouraged my artistic side. She thought I could draw well, and had bought me a pastel drawing kit and asked me to draw an image for her that she could hang and display. If I remember right, it hung in her hallway for a time.
My aunt and uncle were there for me when I stage managed a play in high school. I wasn't even in it, but they came to see it - no easy feat, as the school was in Connecticut. But they were there. She was there for me during college. My uncle even took a trip or two with me going back and forth to my college in Illinois. And when I went to Europe, she saw to it that I had a nice 135mm camera to take pictures with.
I don't remember the last time we spoke. It has been a while. But one of the last times we spoke, I asked her a few things about my childhood. I had wondered if the stresses of my grandmother raising me and my sister could have hurt her. Aunt Evelyn quite emphatically, and surprisingly, told me that she thought that we were actually good for her.
My aunt hadn't been well for a while. Some thought she was going to pass away a while ago. She had had so many heart attacks, and apparently the last one is the one that killed her - last night. She was never one to sit still. She was always off somewhere, doing something. There would be times I would leave her a message, and not hear back.
After a while I just let it go. I was off living my own life, after all. And I thought if she wanted to talk to me she might consider reaching out to me occasionally. When I was up in NY recently I thought about her. I think the last time I saw her was Christmas Eve before I moved to California. I am not sure about that. But if that was indeed the last time, that was over 6 years ago.
Time surely does fly.
There is so much going through my mind an my emotions are reeling. I have no idea how much of this is about me and how much of this is about other things. I also think it touches very close to home, given what I have been going through. It also just so happens that she died within a week of the anniversary of my grandmother's death.
I had been feeling really anxious the last couple of nights.
I guess I now know why.
I am pretty sure I told you Aunt Evelyn how much I appreciated what you did for me. But if you didn't know (and I hear in my head that she did) thank you for all that you did. It wasn't your responsibility, but you chose to make it yours. I know things weren't easy for you, but in so many ways you did more than most.
with Love,
Liz
(She was one of the few people who still got to call me that)
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