My aunt is looking up at me and smiling. I've just kissed her on the forehead and she's smiling. She doesn't look much like my aunt but she's got her warm heart and I know somewhere, in the morass of this hideous disease, my aunt is in there. My aunt died today and I'm writing this through tears that come so fast I can hardly see as I type. But I keep typing as I feel as if she deserves a tribute as she was one of the most spectacular people on the face of the Earth.
The old saying goes when "so and so" was born, they broke the mold. That can't be said for my aunt as after she was born, about nine minutes later, my mother was born and then they broke the mold. My mother and my aunt were identical twins in every wonderful sense of the word. They were beyond best friends. As my aunt would say, they were genetically the same person and that made her my mother, as well. I always felt bad for other people. They only had one mother. I had two and they were both perfect.
They were mirror twins and that meant they were often opposites but complementary. Where my mother was more reserved, my aunt was unabashedly in your face. Where my mother was sweet, my aunt was sassy. Where my mother was more timid, my aunt was adventurous and often reckless. But they were the same in one way- their devotion to their children, their mother, and each other. I knew that as long as they lived, I had tireless advocates for my welfare. I was never really alone. I knew they'd be there for me no matter what. And tonight I can't help but feel a bit lost as one of the things I depended on is no longer here. My aunt's support is gone but her love remains.
Not many people can say that they had literally two mothers, but I could. I know I was lucky. I always knew it. I just kind of wished it could have lasted forever. But, like everything else, it couldn't. And I know I was privileged to have it at all, muchless as long as I did.
I love this picture of my aunt. That's her and my grandmother at my sister's Sweet Sixteen in 1977. It was at Allgauer's, a local banquet hall, and they all learned to dance disco. I was about ten and thought they all looked moronic, no matter how popular it was. It's hysterical when I think back on all the teenage, Jewish girls from the North Shore of Chicago clomping around and line dancing with bad haircuts and acne.
But I remember sitting there with my aunt, listening to her talk. My aunt was just so damn hip. So much hipper than the kids. She was far too cool to dance. She was too busy chatting and smoking and wearing her super hip '70s tinted glasses to get into that silliness. She was my aunt. She was too cool for any bullshit trend. She was the trend, damnit. And I would sit and watch her, copy her smoking, and try desperately to get her attention. For some reason, she was my hero. I thought she was the greatest person on the planet. She was my mom, only so much cooler. She was my aunt, damnit! And I was crazy about her.
I mean, look here. That's my aunt, in the stripes, and my mother in the red and white. My mother is lovely and wonderful but my aunt would kick your ass!! You could see her attitude through the same face. My grandmother and my great aunt, Rose, respectively from left to right, were much like my mother and my aunt. My grandmother was more quiet and austere. Her sister, my aunt Rose, told dirty jokes and spoke her mind. You can see my point. My aunt would take that towel and whip it at you if you got out of hand at Thanksgiving. She never did because she didn't have to. She knew how to keep all of us girls in line. My Auntie Care? Yeah, she'd cut a bitch!
I remember my aunt babysat me once when I was about four, I'd say. I was at their house in Skokie and they moved to Northbrook in 1972, so I was only five then, so I couldn't have been more than that. I remember my cousins who were much older were making me watch Dark Shadows and it was scaring the crap out of me. I hated it. My aunt walked in, saw it, and kicked their asses!! She took my into the kitchen with her and really let them have it. I wonder if that's when she became my hero. I don't know. But I know she saved me often as I loved my cousins but they enjoyed toying with "the baby", meaning me. I think she was my protector more than I can remember.
We're Jewish, so Thanksgiving was our holiday. There are many reasons for this but we didn't get Christmas really- although we did get together- and I was about 12 before I even knew that Easter was a big deal. We liked Thanksgiving because it was all about the food and the fun and the family. And we had a lot of that. This picture is from Thanksgiving before I was born. But I know what they were doing and who was cooking and what they were talking about. I may not have been there, but I knew every one of those holidays backwards and forward. I would give anything to be there one more time- but I can't. And I know I'm lucky to have been there at all. But I'm not there yet. I still miss it.
And I miss my aunt. I miss her laugh and her attitude and her being. I miss her talking as my mother quietly nodded her head. I miss her sitting in her kitchen in Long Beach and eating cream pies in the middle of the night. I miss her standing in her kitchen in Northbrook, papers strewn all over the table, with a cigarette burning down in a plastic pink ashtray while she had another in her hand. I miss the way she said "Hello" on the phone in a long, high tone that was uniquely her. I miss everything about her as she was so unique. And so special.
It's interesting that people say that the matriarch is the center and the heart of every soap opera. Alice Horton, for example, on DOOL. If my family were a soap opera, my aunt would be the Matriarch to some extent and my mother the other. Together, they'd be perfect. They'd be Viki, without the money or the pedigree. But all the class and caring and love.
My aunt spent her last days in some ways as she wanted. She was with my mother. They spent all their time together. They shared a room but I wish it had not been in a nursing home but rather a condo in Palm Springs, lounging by the pool, rarely speaking, and my aunt could be smoking. She loved smoking and although it caused her pain and had horrible ramifications, she enjoyed it. I like to think of her doing everything she liked. She always had to sacrifice so much.
So, I'll simply say "Goodbye" to my Auntie Care but I won't really. Every time I walk out on the beach, I know she's with me and she's sitting in a little beach chair, with one of those gauze scarfs on her head, with a cigarette in her hand, and she's chatting and chatting as her sister and daughters and nieces and grandchildren are spread out in the sand and the water, chatting and fighting and laughing. And she's happy.
