Remembering a Great Lady
On Wednesday, June 23, 2021, my Aunt Audrey—surrounded by people who loved her—passed away at the robust age of 94.
I will miss her. And so will many others, not the least being her one surviving daughter—my cousin Ruthie—and her husband, Dana (“Papa D”)—and their children and grandchildren.
In the last couple of weeks—after Aunt Audrey took a spill and landed in the hospital—I found myself thinking about her more than usual. She and Uncle Dick often visited our family when I was a child, and that may not have been as easy as it sounds, since my mother seemed to separate herself from her birth family and, in particular, from her six sisters. Instead, she cleaved to another family with whom she shared a decidedly meaningful bond.
Not that my other aunts were disinclined to stay connected to my mother—their sister. They were more than willing to keep her close, but my mother was reluctant. Difficult. Standoffish.
But Aunt Audrey did not let manufactured barriers stand in her way. She stayed in touch. She called. She cared but was never intrusive or pushy. In short, she persisted.
In later years and after my mother died in 1986, Aunt Audrey continued to persist. Sometimes years passed before I saw or talked with her, but she always acted as though our last conversation was yesterday.
Over the years, Aunt Audrey lost her son, Bob, and—then—his wife, Cindy. Her daughter, Ginger, died, and so did Uncle Dick. She was blessed to be welcomed and invited to live with her youngest child, Ruthie. In that busy and often boisterous home, she was active and cared for and loved and needed and appreciated.
After my older sister died in January 2017, Aunt Audrey quietly expressed her love and compassion. That fall we held a celebration of my sister’s life at Tybee Island, Georgia, and Aunt Audrey, Cousin Ruthie, and Papa D made the trip to be there. They—and she—demonstrated their/her love with practical support that included Aunt Audrey’s homemade Haystack Cookies brought in a tin from their home in Kentucky (not to mention enough BBQ to feed a small army!). A year later they hosted our family reunion, with Aunt Audrey telling stories about her life as we all bustled around her. The year after that they trekked across the country for a reunion at my sister’s California home. Once again, she rolled up her sleeves and made Haystack Cookies for the group.
Aunt Audrey remained “with it” to the very end. She was active on Facebook, and I have dozens of comments that she made on my posts: “Neat!”... “Looking great!”... “Beautiful”... “Wonderful!.”
Just a few days before she died, I telephoned her, and we talked for several minutes. When asked, she told me the names of her grandparents and where they all were born. She chuckled (ruefully) over the big tumble she had taken over the weekend. The last two things she said to me were typical Aunt Audrey: “I’m so proud of you with your poetry books” and “I love you.”
Hers was a generous love that did not require constant tending (but that blossomed even more beautifully when cultivated). She simply loved me and my sisters and my parents. I knew it and never questioned it, and it is exactly the way that I approach my relationships with my nieces and nephews.
Love. Given with unrestrained joy and minimal expectations for a reciprocal arrangement. It is something that I learned from my Aunt Audrey and that I expressed in the poem I dedicated to my aunts in my chapbook Just the Girls: A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies; A Drift of Honeybees (The Poetry Box press, 2020):
Baking Bread
For Aunt Shirley, Aunt Norma, Aunt Winifred, Aunt Audrey, Aunt Esther, Aunt Evelyn
I crack two eggs into the scooped-out
flour crater on the table. Push
my fingers through the yolks, squeeze
my hands into fists, add warm
water and yeast. I bake to honor
the memories of dead women.
My grandmother, who pulled my
fingers into the flour, kneaded
with me until blisters pocked its
smooth surface. My mother,
who rolled out white-gray
loaves and sliced ravines across
their raw skins. Aunts
bending, brushing on cold water,
and baking hard, gold shells that
echoed when tapped with a bare knuckle.
I tear off a hot slab of bread
and slather it with butter. Offer
a prayer of thanks to the dead.
For the living.
