Tag: Loss

On Today’s Bike Ride: the Wind Connects Us

The older I get, the more I could turn this blog into an obituary column. Yesterday, I drove a four-hour round trip for the funeral of my sister, who passed away unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago.

She was 12 and 1/2 years older and often took care of me. When I was sad, she would put her arms around me and sing the song “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Or at least parts of it. Too bad she’s not here to sing it now, because I’m very sad.

But going outside and moving always helps. So I got on my bicycle this morning and took one of my favorite trail rides to a small, local lake.

Lake under moderately cloudy sky.

It was a bit windy for bicycling. But instead of seeing it as an adversary, I celebrated the wind as a connecting force. The same wind rippling the water, bending the grass blades, making tree leaves dance, a co-navigator for the birds, blowing across everyone outdoors and rattling the windows of all the folks indoors. Nothing like wind to remind us how each piece is a part of the whole.

These ruminations remind me of a poem about loss that rings true for me.

To One Dead
by Max Bodenheim

I walked upon a hill
And the wind, made solemnly drunk with your presence,
Reeled against me.
I stooped to question a flower,
And you floated between my fingers and the petals,
Tying them together.
I severed a leaf from its tree
And a water-drop in the green flagon
Cupped a hunted bit of your smile.
All things about me were steeped in your remembrance
And shivering as they tried to tell me of it.

**

The Last of the Aunts

“Though she be but little she is fierce.” Shakespeare, foreshadowing my Aunt Faye.

As we age, loss becomes more common, but never familiar. It feels new every time. My parents’ generation has been dropping off, one by one, and there are few left. My mother and father each had three sisters. When I was young, I didn’t realize how fortunate I was to have so many aunts in my life, each one of them a standout in her own way.

The last few years, my mom’s youngest sister was the last aunt standing. Faye was the fun aunt, the unconditional love aunt, the one who was young and without children of her own. Though she topped out at 4’11” and probably never weighed more than 100 pounds, she contained an outsized amount of energy and spirit.

She provided her nieces and nephews with experiences we wouldn’t have had otherwise. They may sound small to others, but for kids who rarely left the neighborhood, a day with her was a day of adventure. She played a guitar that was nearly as big as she was, enchanting us with music. She took us to a park where a Christmas village and playground was set up year round. Amazing! Once, bravely, she packed as many kids as would fit in her yellow Volkswagen and surprised us with an outing to the American Royal Horse Show, where we all dreamily fell in love with a palomino named Stardust.

Beyond goings and doings, Aunt Faye provided boundless amounts of unconditional love. Nobody she met ever felt unvalued or unseen. Eventually, she met a nice woman from Wales who was in the U.S. for a while. When the two retired, they moved across the pond, where Faye became a step-mom and granny to her partner’s offspring.

Though she spent the last couple of decades thousands of miles from her family of origin, she kept up with technology and kept in touch, including getting to know many of the children she’d never met in person or had seen only when they were babies. Touching my heart, she developed a close online relationship with my oldest son, offering him support when he was going through extremely difficult times.

My aunt was deeply troubled this past year by developments in the home country she loved with every fiber of her being. She spoke out and did her best to educate the younger folk about the history and dangers of fascism. She was fierce in her dedication to protecting her people and the principles of a just world.

This past week, I received the news I would never be ready for. Aunt Faye was gone. She was 84, but had been in decent health. I’d been chatting with her online just a couple of days previously. It turns out, she passed very much like my mother did. She had what seemed like a garden variety cold, went to bed and never woke up.

I’m not sure I’m adequate to the task, but I will do my best to carry on her legacy of spreading love and fighting evil.

Rest in power, my tiny and fierce aunt.