When my husband (then my fiancé) first introduced me to his family, he made a special trip with me to see his father's aunt Annie. My first impression of her was of a very tired, very poor, very bitter old curmudgeon who had nothing good to say about anyone.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Sure, she had a crusty exterior. But as I got to know her, I came to care very deeply for her because she was so incredibly witty and intelligent, well-traveled and possessing a pithy wisdom gained from living through the depression, raising first her siblings and then her husband and children, and having to grieve both her husband and her son. She'd been widowed for many years when I first met her, and she had lost her son to a heart attack several years previous to our meeting as well.
She'd been a schoolteacher, had traveled to Japan, was one of the first Canadians to go there to teach English. When I decided to go through university and get my degree, she was my strongest supporter. I would drop by after my classes or between them, and she would drink in all the experiences I told her about, leaning forward to catch every word. She was a big believer in making money and putting some aside for retirement. She herself was - well, I guess there is no delicate way to say it - extremely well-off... yet she lived like a pauper. She banked every penny she saved. It was her legacy to her children and grandchildren.
My husband and I would joke with each other about her obsession with money. Yet we knew she had so much more to contribute. She wrote her memoirs by hand for her grandchildren to enjoy after she was gone. I remember her reading to me from them, and me having to wipe at my eyes from laughing so much at her deft turns of phrase. She then decided to give the papers to the children to type up and put into book form for the grandchildren, while she was still living, so she could enjoy their reaction to hearing her funny and interesting stories of growing up in rural PEI in the 1920s and 1930s. My favorite story in her memoirs was the time she went to Japan and they asked her if she was "Anne" of the Island. She said, "Of course," and they treated her like royalty. (She loved that story... and I loved to hear it.)
When our oldest child was still a toddler, Annie had a spiritual experience that transformed her attitudes and softened that crusty exterior. We marveled at the change in her, how the best things about her came to the fore and the obsession with money gradually faded in comparison with her growing attachment to her extended family. One of the last memories I have of her is her flooring me; she looked me square in the eye with those fiery pale blue piercers of hers and said, "You can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have family, you have nothing."
But as time went on, she was getting more and more frail. Soon, she couldn't manage her own daily activities and had to give up her basement apartment, which was spartan to say the least, in favor of a lovely room in a high-quality long-term care facility in town. She lived there for quite a few months and her quick, dry sense of humor never abated. She passed away at the residence, quietly.
To honor her, we took the initials of her first and middle names, and made sure that our second child (who was born a few months after she passed away) had the same initials. And that her middle name - Laura - was what our daughter's middle initial stood for.
She'd been a schoolteacher, had traveled to Japan, was one of the first Canadians to go there to teach English. When I decided to go through university and get my degree, she was my strongest supporter. I would drop by after my classes or between them, and she would drink in all the experiences I told her about, leaning forward to catch every word. She was a big believer in making money and putting some aside for retirement. She herself was - well, I guess there is no delicate way to say it - extremely well-off... yet she lived like a pauper. She banked every penny she saved. It was her legacy to her children and grandchildren.
When our oldest child was still a toddler, Annie had a spiritual experience that transformed her attitudes and softened that crusty exterior. We marveled at the change in her, how the best things about her came to the fore and the obsession with money gradually faded in comparison with her growing attachment to her extended family. One of the last memories I have of her is her flooring me; she looked me square in the eye with those fiery pale blue piercers of hers and said, "You can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have family, you have nothing."
But as time went on, she was getting more and more frail. Soon, she couldn't manage her own daily activities and had to give up her basement apartment, which was spartan to say the least, in favor of a lovely room in a high-quality long-term care facility in town. She lived there for quite a few months and her quick, dry sense of humor never abated. She passed away at the residence, quietly.
To honor her, we took the initials of her first and middle names, and made sure that our second child (who was born a few months after she passed away) had the same initials. And that her middle name - Laura - was what our daughter's middle initial stood for.
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