The family you choose

Aunt Barbara and Mr. Buffie
September 2002

Is this unique to my family or do you have relatives who don't share your DNA but they're in your heart in the same place as someone who does?

My mum and dad used to tell me that we had two kinds of family members, the ones we're born with and the ones we choose.  And it wasn't uncommon in my family to like the chosen ones more than a couple of the blood relatives.  (They know who they are...)

I have the extremely good fortune to have five aunts - the best in the world, actually.  Three of them are my mum's sisters and two of them are my mum's BFFs.

The horrible reality of life is that it ends.  I lost my Aunt Merilyn in August of 2001.  Last night my Aunt Barbara passed away.

My Aunt Barbara had been struggling with 'a touch of the emphysema' for a while.  She recently got sick with the flu and it was too much for her body to take.  Mum said I should be comforted that she isn't suffering anymore.  I'm not comforted though.  I'm eaten up with self pity because my heart is shattered.  Broken beyond repair.

I don't mean to sound insane but people like Aunt Barbara are supposed to live forever.

Aunt Barbara was the kind of person that if you were going to visit, she was going to feed you.  A lot.  Aunt Barbara gave me my first grown up cookbook.  Between her and my mother, I should have hella mad domestic skillz but I inexplicably have none.

She was determined to teach me to make basic sugar cookies once.  I remember thinking it was the most labor-intensive thing I had ever done.  I was covered in flour and had practically destroyed her tiny kitchen but she didn't give up.  She even tried teaching me how to make icing.  We ended up with probably 10 edible cookies, a couple of which you could almost tell were supposed to be Christmas trees, but that was more a credit to the green frosting than anything I did.

And my Aunt Barbara loved me anyway.  I think she loved me almost as much as my mum does.  I know she did.

Every stupid school play, she was there, even if I only had one line.  If I was sick, she was calling every day to talk to mum and check on me.

When my mum was staying in Wichita to take care of her sister after she had a stroke, Aunt Barbara was constantly stopping by to make sure dad and I were fed, clothed and loved.  I was in my late teens, capable of taking care of myself and dad for a few weeks.  But Aunt Barbara couldn't be convinced without putting her eyes on us and checking the cabinets to make sure there was food in the house.

One of her sons did inherit her culinary magic and it was at his restaurant that Mr. Buffie proposed to me.  Aunt Barbara knew I was getting engaged weeks before I did and I'm sure it took every ounce of willpower she had not to tell me what was going to happen.

She didn't have much and didn't want for anything either.  She believed in God and Heaven and she lived her life to make the world a better place.  She accomplished that.  In a million ways.

In her eyes, everyone deserved love and she gave it more freely than anyone else I know.  She didn't care about your politics, whether you smoked, drank or swore.  It didn't matter to her if you went to church or not.  She wasn't impressed by executive titles or fat bank accounts.  If you were a good egg, she could tell and she would treat you with the same kindness, patience and love she gave her own children.

I don't believe in God or Heaven but at times like this, I admit I feel conflicted.  I'm as passionate about my atheism as my spiritual friends are about their faiths.  And feel truly lucky to have friends who are live-and-let-live kinds of people.

There's no way Aunt Barbara can just be gone.  I can't fathom it.  To think there's nothing left?  No.  That's unacceptable.  She would have agreed.  If she believed she would go to Heaven, then she did.  And it's fine if I want to think about her that way.  And if it's not fine, I don't care.  I'm still going to think about her that way.

Yes, she'll live on in my memory, in my heart.  And I'll have to figure out the other ways she'll live on but I will figure it out.  I know she's gone and I can still feel how much she loved me.

Right now I'm wallowing in sadness.  She'd be disappointed in me if I kept this up for too long but it's going to be one of those nights where I finally get calmed down then in the quiet, my mind goes to painful places and I'm sobbing again.

Death is the end of life but is it final?  Don't ask me.  I have no idea.  Aunt Barbara would say it's the beginning of a new life in a better place.  I hope that's true because she deserves it.