I had one aunt, and we lost her last week. I’ve been thinking a lot about my two cousins who lost their mother, and all their daughters who lost a grandmother, but also about how important that incredible woman was to me growing up.
My first plane flight was on Eastern Airlines from Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta to visit this aunt. I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time and I remember I wore white gloves and a little white straw hat with a navy ribbon to match my navy dress. I carried a gift-wrapped fancy shower cap on the plane to deliver to her as my hostess gift. She and my mother were five years apart and not particularly close, probably because they were such profoundly different people. For instance, my mother didn’t sew. That was a skill I was desperate to learn as a child, so my aunt got out her sewing machine while I was visiting and gave me lessons.
Knowing her as a grownup
Living in Atlanta after college meant I was able to see my aunt at somewhat regular intervals over the past 40 years. She had me over to the house to teach me how to bake our grandmother’s famous chocolate cake. She included me in the occasional family dinner with her kids and grandkids. She asked me to lunch at the country club, and told me family stories over big salads and soft rolls that were almost as good as the ones she used to bake from scratch.
Not long ago she moved from her big house on the river to a townhome closer to her sons. It was nearer to me as well, so I was able to visit a little more often, sometimes taking her out to get a haircut or to pick up some things at the grocery store. Other times I’d just stop by with a big slice of coconut cake or caramel cake from Piece of Cake. (Her mother used to bake the best coconut cake in the family, and her aunt the best caramel.) My sister makes our great aunt’s Christmas cookies every year, and when I showed up with a tin of those, my aunt said they made her day.
Family stories nobody else can tell
Her short-term memory began to go, so we talked mostly about things she remembered from long ago. She’d tell stories of growing up the mayor’s daughter in a small town in south Georgia and visits to the Henry Grady Hotel in Atlanta in the years he served as state senator. She’d tell me how my grandmother would speed down country roads with a parrot who sat on her shoulder — and pecked her any time the car hit a bump in the road. She’d talk about moving to Jacksonville for high school and being a debutante. When I asked her what that was like, she said, “Oh, I loved it. Two parties a day. It was so much fun.” (My mother asked her parents if she could skip her debut and use the money for a student trip to India instead.)
She was 89 in February, but when I think of her now, I see the portrait painted of her when she was young, possibly the season she was a debutante. She had brilliant blue eyes and nearly black hair and I think was wearing white gloves with her formal gown. Her expression in that painting suggested she was having a great time.
One of the last
She really was a lot of fun. I loved to make her laugh, and she was an easy mark. Her voice is one of the things I’ll miss the most about her, a gentle Southern accent reminiscent of other old ladies in the family that we lost long ago, with a tinkly tone that was hers alone.
After her husband died, she decided she needed a dog. When we were kids, she always had giant white Samoyeds. This time, she chose a tiny white Havanese rescue, so I drove her to some little town in north Georgia one Saturday to pick up the dog she named Crystal. When we stopped at a convenience store along the way, I went around to help her out of the car — accustomed I guess to my mother’s lessened mobility. But by the time I got there, she was already skipping up the curb and through the front door of the store. She had a jaunty walk that she maintained well into old age.
She was one of the very last of the old ladies left on that side of our family. After our mother died, she was my source of info and lore about our grandmother and great aunt, both of whom were the subjects of many great family stories. I keep thinking of things I wished I’d thought to ask her. But I cherish all the stories she did share with me, and am so grateful for my wonderful memories of her.
