Her mind clear as a bell, Aunt Mimi’s body began to fail. Her old back problems felt worse and she couldn’t get around the way she used to, which upset her.
To Julia Ellen had fallen the task of caring for her mother, a mother who loathed taking orders. She’d growl at Julia Ellen, yell at her sometimes. Julia Ellen had her own problems to contend with; after all, she wasn’t getting any younger, either, and she can’t take a lot of stress.
I’d write my aunt or call. She’d brighten and tell stories, and at the end she even forgot to lash me with her rosary beads.
She shocked me when she said, “The Church is wrong about divorce. My Julia Ellen would be better off today if she could have divorced Russell years ago.”
“Aunt Mimi?” I wasn’t sure I was speaking to my real aunt.
“Oh, yes. I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.” She laughed, quoting her own mother. “I think the Church is wrong and I was wrong.”
“You did what you thought was right at the time.”
“Who is going to take care of Julia Ellen when I’m gone? He’s spent all her money.”
I interrupted, “He’s good at heart, Aunt Mimi.”
“I know he is. I like him but I don’t like him as my daughter’s husband. I never should have let her marry him in the first place. I wanted her to marry—”
“Aunt Mimi, she hated that rich guy.” I stepped in before she could go on a tear about the “chosen” son-in-law.
“She’d be well off today.”
“She’d be miserable.”
“She’s miserable now.”
“She’s miserable because she sees you in pain and she can’t do much. Basically, Julia Ellen would be a happy person if everybody would leave her alone.”
Oh, there was an icy silence on the other end of that line. “You’re turning into my sister!”
“Were you ever bored around Juts?”
“No.”
“Neither was I.”
“Well—you’ve got a point there.” She paused a moment. “Rita, I won’t live much longer. I’ve lived a long time as it is. You won’t forget me when I’m gone, will you?”
“Aunt Mimi, I could never forget you, and I promise to light candles for you in church, in your church.”
“Really?”
“I promise. You held me during that blizzard, you fed me. You helped Dad drive the car. I’ll have a mass said for you and I will light candles for you until the day I die.”
A moment passed—and not a tearful one, I might add. “Do you do that for Juts?”
“No. I say prayers for her but not in the Catholic church.”
“Oh—I can’t wait to tell her!” She laughed.
Aunt Mimi died in her sleep on May 20, 1993, at home. Odd that she slipped away on Dolley Madison’s birthday. Two women, both of them guides, if you will. The one gone since 1849 but leaving behind a legacy of deep moral conviction and tremendous courage. The other despotic, rigid and trying to be something she wasn’t, a saint. Underneath all that baloney. Aunt Mimi was as gay (old use of the word) as Juts. The raucous humor, the love of dancing and parties, the desire to shine … it was all there, but she’d worked so hard to cover it up.
The few times I saw Aunt Mimi let ’er rip, like at the butchers’ picnic or at the York Fair, she was as much fun as Mom.
They were all gone now. Mom. Dad. Aunt Mimi. Bucky. Mother and Daddy Brown. My beloved PopPop. Virginia. Even Earl, whom I could never stand, but still, he was gone, too.
I realized that liking or not liking someone was irrelevant. It was the time in history that you shared. A time binds you to another person just as passions bind you to the dead. I am bound to foxhunters I have never met, to Aristophanes, to Dolley Madison, by our mutual passions and concerns. But the people of the flesh, the ones I heard, smelled and watched, the giants of my childhood, they’re gone.
This time comes to each of us and each of us must light a candle.
I supposed in Aunt Mimi’s case I should light a blowtorch.
I miss the old dragon.
And I miss those times, those primary colors of early memories, the 1940s and the 1950s. I miss the cars and trucks with the big rolling fenders. I miss the tinny music swinging out of the radio and Mom dancing as she worked, singing along in her lovely soprano. I miss seeing Dad lift a three-hundred-pound side of beef as though it were no heavier than a cinder-block. I miss Bucky, paint-splattered, putting me on his shoulder and telling me what a wonderful little girl I was. I miss Mickey and always shall.
Was it the time? Or were the people kinder then? Perhaps if I were a child now, people would be equally kind, as they should be to small ones. I don’t know.
But my memories are that it was a unique time. We’d won a terrible war. Life could begin again. We could build cars for pleasure instead of tanks for killing. We could thank God for our deliverance. People were happier then, I think. And I think, too, they had more respect for horses and animals because they were closer to them. We still had a good-sized population of people who lived on farms. Now the percentage is so small that the city people and suburban people will eventually destroy us with legislation and taxes. When I was little you could make a living as a small farmer. It’s almost impossible now. In some ways, I feel that loss as keenly as the loss of the people.
Aunt Mimi left a legacy. It may not be what she intended, but then, does life ever turn out as you intend it to? No. Aunt Mimi and Juts will live as long as people want to laugh at the foibles, pettiness, battles and love that exist in families, in small towns.
Aunt Mimi and Mom gave me my material. They dug a well that can never run dry. If I had a hundred years, I couldn’t run out of stories.
I’ve kept my promise to Aunt Mimi. I light a candle for her each time I visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. If I happen by a Catholic church when I’m on the road and have a few moments, I light a candle and say a prayer of thanks. There’s a nice church in Staunton, Virginia—St. Francis. I’ll have to go there from time to time for her.
There’s a lovely old Episcopal church in Greenwood, up the road from me on Route 250. Sometimes I go there for Mother. There’s not a Lutheran church nearby, and I’m as happy in an Episcopal church as in a Lutheran one anyway. Truly, Mom wouldn’t care so long as it’s not a Catholic church.
I think I’ll say a prayer for Aunt Mimi in Emmanuel Episcopal Church and light a candle for Mom at St. Francis. Wonder what will happen. Just because they’re dead I see no reason not to torment them.
But then again, they aren’t truly dead, are they?
As long as you love someone, the best part of them lives.