I never understood when people said funerals were for the living, not the dead. That is, until now. Loss of any friend or family member is difficult. My Mom lost her battle with cancer in 1998. She was only 65. Last week, my aunt and Mom’s only sister, lost her battle with cancer at 88.
Her final requests were no ceremony, no funeral, no obituary. I asked my Dad if this offended him. He said yes, but my aunt had told him this a year or so ago.
I had a hard time with this. I couldn’t figure out why it seemed so disrespectful to respect my Aunt’s, and namesake’s, final wishes. It felt if we did that, it would almost be if she never existed.
We live on the west coast and they lived on the east coast. My brothers live fours hours away from me and in opposite directions.
Then it finally came to me. I e-mailed my Dad and brothers letting them know that we were planning a memorial at a certain time on a certain day. They were free to join, but RSVP’s were not needed. We each decided to have our thoughts or whatever we needed to do at the same time, while we were each in our own separate cities and states.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but was the right thing to do.
My daughter and I were getting ready to sit in the living room with some photo albums and a candle. We are both sensitive crybabies so I grabbed a box of tissues knowing we would need them. Something fell on the wood floor as I grabbed the box. I didn’t see what it was and my daughter picked it up. It was a single bobby pin. I froze and burst into tears. My Mom’s name was Barbara, but I had to tell my daughter that my aunt called her Bobbie.
After a candle was lit, we sat on the couch. My daughter had met her great-aunt several times in her life, so her memories were limited.
I began telling her the earliest things I knew about my aunt. We then began to look through two specific photo albums. One was from a trip we had taken with my parents when my daughter was four years old-she is now 22. We drove from Los Angeles to Buffalo, New York. We spent 6 weeks driving around 22 states. We visited relatives from both sides of the family, in a few different states.
This is where we began our own memorial. We went over the pictures we took while visiting the White House, New York City, Salem, Dallas, Virginia, and more.
While on the trip, we had spent about a week visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousins in New York. The photographs were fun to look at because they captured the people we visited, our clothing styles, and so many exciting things we had seen and done.
Before my daughter and I knew it, the tears were less and the laughter and sharing had taken over. Every now and then we would tear up.
I had mixed feelings as we began our memorial. I didn’t want to scare my daughter or make her feel badly in any way. But that didn’t happen at all. We talked, laughed, and cried as we looked through the albums realizing how many people in the photos are now gone. But, we also had a chance to go back into some of our happiest memories and relive those for a moment.
My Aunt was a big breakfast person. My Mom and Dad would say that she liked to make a big deal of breakfast. Then, she would spend until lunch cleaning up, only to turn around and begin making lunch or dinner.
After going over the albums, my daughter and I made a big beautiful breakfast. We made our own version of decadent Eggs Benedict and then blew out the candle.
I later checked my e-mail. My Dad, brothers, and I all had our moments of silence at our own homes. My Dad asked we each write something we remembered about my Aunt and share it with each other.
I think what we did was okay, besides my Aunt knew I was never very good at following directions.