... because today is her birthday. My Aunt Mary. Also known as Mary Agnes. A wildly successful woman who began her career in the garment business by handpainting silk ties. Who was once a nun. Who saved my life on more than one occasion. Everyone should have an Aunt Mary. I don't even know where to begin to tell this story; her story and mine now seem impossible to separate.
I have just sat here and written and deleted and written and deleted again and again. It is impossible. I can't say anything that will adequately describe her import in my life. Maybe I will be able to put it all into words someday; believe me , it will make for a very charming read. But I am realizing that I cannot do that today. I will say this: it feels like everything I have or am that is good was influenced by her. I became responsible for her literally the day after my mother died. Really, she needed help long before that, but she let my mother's need supersede her own. Thank God she let me help her to the overwhelming extent she did. Thank God she kept me close. She needed me, but I needed her more. Out of everyone in the whole of my family-life, she was the most verbally demonstrative. And she thought the world of me. And she told me so. DAILY. Thank God she did. I didn't know what was coming down the pike. I didn't know that my sense of who I was would be shaken to its very core. In the wake of time, in the end, I could remember who I was to her and the rest just didn't matter.
And so...
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord -
And let perpetual light shine upon her -
May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God,
Rest in peace.
Amen.
