Our aunt died today.

She wasn’t just any aunt. She was my favorite aunt for many reasons, not the least of which is that we were fortunate to have her longest.

She was also our last aunt, or uncle, for that matter. And with that realization comes a whole host of raw emotions. An entire generation is gone. There are no more elders, except for older cousins, but they are more like peers, respected and loved and treasured, for sure, but they are not the “giants” that we looked up to in our parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. We are it now. How do we measure up to those models of morality? There are fewer and fewer giants looking out for us now.

My mother was the oldest of three sisters—the trinity, the triumvirate, the hat trick of sisters. They were close, always had each other’s backs. My mother had the most rock-solid family life, married to the man who adored her for sixty years before his death. We had as close to a Leave It to Beaver life as possible, and my parents’ love for their extended family provided stability and a closeness we were all grateful for. We knew it was special as we were living it.

Our house was a revolving door of relatives and friends coming over to visit. Many meals were shared, creating this ideal closeness between family members. There was a Knowing that you had a tribe.

My mother’s sisters didn’t have solid marriages. I’ll just leave it there. We watched plenty of tears spilling into countless cups of tea, and through it all, both aunts remained strong. Aunt Angie eventually retired from a long career as an executive assistant at G.E.  After her husband died, she became the doting parent she always wanted to be to her two grown daughters, Rosemary and Roberta, and she was the happiest she ever was when grandchildren came into her life. She adored Michael, Alyssa, and Matthew, and was proud of their every accomplishment. Her eyes always twinkled when she talked about them or when any of us would visit her, telling us repeatedly that she loved us. Every time I saw her, I covered her face in slurpy kisses because she reveled in them and I wanted to shower her with the affection she deserved. She would brag about her daughters’ or my sister’s cooking, especially after they brought her delicious goodies like homemade apple pie or lasagna. “What did you bring to me today?” she asked. We were spoiled by good food for decades and institutional food could not measure up. 

Among her many wonderful qualities was this effervescent spirit of fun. She and my sister went off to Florida on a long-ago girls’ trip, both of them coming home with a sun-poisoning souvenir. We always knew where Aunt Angie was when she wasn’t home: at her second home at Off-Track Betting. When she could no longer drive, it thrilled her when anyone would take her to the casino. She loved the thought of winning, even if she didn’t win much.  

She had a laugh you’d never forget; and when I close my eyes I can hear it.

My favorite story goes back many years when I was probably 5 and my sister 13. Aunt Angie was to babysit us for a weekend while my parents went to Long Island for a wedding.

Our parents had a bar in the house where they would keep liquor, and while Aunt Angie was staying with us that weekend, we asked if we could make her a drink. Dad always let us mix drinks for guests when people were over, and people were always over. If it wasn’t one relative or friend, it was another. It wasn’t unusual. Well, this particular weekend, Aunt Angie arrived pretty low. One drink became two…and before we knew it, we were playing records and dancing around the living room. Spooky became her lifelong theme song.

“In the cool of the evening when ev'rything is gettin' kind of groovy,
I call you up and ask you if you want to go and meet and see a movie,
First you say no, you've got some plans for the night,
And then you stop, and say, "All right."
Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you….”

Spooky was a perfect backdrop for what was about to happen next.

Our house was situated right next to a city park where we got to witness all sorts of things, including sports and other shenanigans. But on this particular night we looked out the window only to see this weird hovering aircraft with a ring of blue lights. Holy crap, it was a spaceship from Mars. It moved back and forth, lingering in the summer sky. We watched, wondering what we should do. We decided to call the police to come check it out (can you imagine that call going over the scanner?), and sure enough by the time the police arrived the mysterious spaceship had disappeared. All they found was a forty-something woman who kinda smelled like Black Velvet and two little girls.

We never did figure out what that celestial event was, and it quite likely was some reconnaissance mission from nearby Griffiss Air Force base. But it was a singular event that became our shared collective experience, and it belonged only to us. We never forgot this treasured episode and chuckled about it for another 50 years. 

I loved my aunt because she was an extension of my mother, cut from the same cloth. I chose her as my Confirmation godmother. When we lost our Aunt Antoinette, we still had my mother and Aunt Angie. When we lost my mother, we still had Aunt Angie. Now we are without. Period. It feels like we lost them all, all over again. 

The trinity is together somewhere else, and they are no doubt joyous to be reunited once again. We will keep each of them as individuals and as a collective alive in our hearts and in our memories until our own time is done, and more than anything, we are left with enormous gratitude that we got to coexist together on this planet in the same time and space with this all-together lovely woman, our dearest Aunt Angie.