My Aunt Joan ~ in Memoriam…

Philosophers, clergy and most oftentimes, I think, poets give us gifts of words to lend understanding to our lives and illumination to the mysteries of our greatest losses.

When we lose someone so special and so loved beyond words, our feelings and emotions are larger and more painful than any single word or string of words in the universe can grasp for us. It’s like staring at the night sky and trying to pick a single star to bring into our hearts for some sense of illumination to guide us forward.

This is how I feel about my Aunt Joan, one of my Mom’s three younger sisters, who passed last Thursday evening into eternal peace. Aunt Joan died peacefully in the most loving presence of her loving daughter, my cousin Jane.

But how do we reconcile the loss of such a lovely woman with the movie star face and voice and sweetness of an angel on earth? Of how I remember my Aunt Joan so clearly in Life, in my mind?

This is the question of life, and of death.

My Aunt Joan is my Godmother. I was born before Aunt Joan had children of her own – Cathy, Jane and David. I remember, like it is today, my Aunt Joan visiting my family for special occasions when my family lived in Boston, in a tiny apartment where my Mom and Navy Dad squeezed three children into one small bedroom with bunk beds that my dad made and a crib.

You always knew when Aunt Joan had arrived. She had the voice of a movie star – deep and raspy – and a movie star face to match, framed with raven hair. I can still hear her laughter and her distinct Boston accent. She called my Nana, her Mom, “Mum” or “Mumma”… and she loved her family. Every once-in-awhile, for a reason I don’t know and haven’t even told her about, my daughter Audrey calls me Mumma, and it always reminds me of my Aunt Joan. It’s always been a fleeting little moment, but now will be even more special…

And Aunt Joan laughed so easily, yet so eloquently. I’ve never heard a laugh so beautiful in all my life.

Aunt Joan had pretty clothes, too! (Remember, please, that MY Mom was and still is a fashionista – sorry, Mom, but you had some pretty stiff competition in your little sis!). And Aunt Joan had hugs, big welcoming hugs…

My family would relocate to San Diego, California with my Dad during the middle 1950’s and I would not see my extended family for 4 years, but for the airplane (gasp!) visits by my Nana and the youngest aunt in the family, my Aunt Ruth. I know how much my Mom missed her family back in Boston, but those visits by Nana and Aunt Ruth are not only emblazoned in my mind, but on 8-mm movie reels that I still have to this day.

I would make my First Communion while in California, and I still have the little white Bible that my Godmother Aunt Joan sent to me to celebrate this very special occasion. This Bible has accompanied me to more homes on more moves than I can count. It always gives me the greatest gift – the feeling of love of family – that Aunt Joan lived. She is the definition of love of family and I will cherish my Bible into eternity.

Aunt Joan had childhood memories and stories to share, too. Being 7 years younger than my Mom, Aunt Joan had family stories from a different perspective. I loved her stories. She remembered things about my Nana and her Dad… most of them very happy, but some profoundly sad, like when their Dad died. My grandfather was a Firefighter in Brighton, MA, and succumbed to lung disease when my Mom was 18 years old and Aunt Joan was 11. This great loss at such a young age, watching her Mom and her five siblings pick up the pieces and go on, would give strength to Aunt Joan amid this great loss.

I remember, while living in California, hearing the wonderful news that Aunt Joan was expecting a baby. I remember a telegram (yes, telegram!) arriving, SHOUTING the news from her husband, Uncle Dave, that a baby girl had arrived – Cathy! I could hardly contain my enthusiasm for returning to New England some day to a baby GIRL cousin.

And yes, my family would return to New England when my Dad was stationed in Portsmouth, NH. Before too long, they’d be two more cousins, Jane and David. Aunt Joan loved her children, the very center of her existence, with the biggest heart; and, as Time has its way of gifting, grandchildren began to arrive – 5 in all. Aunt Joan’s first great-grandbaby, a boy, is due in August.

And also with Time, it can bring sadness of the most profound kind. My beautiful cousin Cathy, a young Mom of three, would succumb to breast cancer in 2004 after the most gallant and courageous strength of heart and the endless care and love of her own Mom, my Aunt Joan. I remember so clearly the last time I was with Cathy… her effervescent smile and great gift of Life, both telling me of her beautiful Japanese Poppies and gardens and scolding me for not having a mammogram in a very long time. I’ve never tended my flower gardens again without Cathy in my heart and I did get that mammogram – every year since…

This kind of loss can break people, but with Aunt Joan’s great faith, dignity, courage and love of family, she moved forward. Maybe she called upon her fiery inside of her angelic demeanor. This is what I remember so clearly about my Aunt Joan… because never have I met such an angel who could belt out a profanity-of-sorts with the best of them. I have my Mom, Rita, whose lips (and heart, I suppose!) have never uttered one single, solitary, isolated profanity in all her lifetime. I take after Aunt Joan with her DNA (probably the Godmother thing) and remember so clearly the day my Dad died suddenly, unexpectedly at age 47 of a heart attack… early, early one hot August morning in 1975 and I had the awful task of calling relatives. My Dad loved my Mom’s family – my Nana and the 5 siblings and in-laws – like they were his own, and they loved him back. I was in the lobby of the hospital struggling for breath and digging for dimes in my purse at a pay phone, desperate to get back to my Mom in the hospital chapel. I remember thinking early morning phone calls are not good ones. I dropped dimes and dialed and heard my Aunt Joan’s beautiful voice, hesitant, “Hello… ?”

I don’t remember exactly how I said the news, but I clearly, clearly, clearly remember Aunt Joan’s answering words, “Ohhhhh, shhhhhhhhhhhit… no, no, no, no…”

And if ever I loved someone in my lifetime, I loved Aunt Joan at that moment because as tears poured from my eyes, that’s really all I wanted to hear.

My Aunt Joan ~ the loveliest Lady of warm, gentle, inviting kindness with the ethereal face and glorious voice. The Lady who could make anyone feel comfortable in her presence. The Lady with love of family beyond compare.

My Aunt Joan, whom I look to my faith and yes, poets, to bring my heart to some sense of illumination to guide me forward. I think first of Aunt Joan with Cathy and her Mumma and Dad and my Dad, entwined with eternal Love “beyond the tomb” among the heavenly flowers and the joyous world we here on earth are privileged to see each day, in these words by 18-century poet John Clare…

‘Tis seen in flowers,
And in the even’s pearly dew
On earth’s green hours,
And in the heaven’s eternal blue.

And I think of how 16th century poet Robert Herrick gives us the clearest image of the Circle of Life that truly never ends, not even with death…

Love is a circle that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of Love.

When we lose someone so special and so loved beyond words, our feelings and emotions are larger and more painful than any single word or string of words in the universe can grasp for us, but seeing and hearing that beloved person in the great beauty around us is Life’s great way of guiding us on along that even greater Circle.

Love you, Aunt Joan! You are a star in the night’s sky for great earthly illumination – and of course we, the living, always go on ~ for Love’s sake.