My husband’s Great-Aunt Gladys, my kids’ great-great aunt, passed away. It was not unexpected…she was 98 years old.
Aunt Gladys — or “Happy Hiney” (you figure that one out!) — was beloved by my husband, and much later by me and our kids. The last time we saw her as a family, we sat in her screened-in porch in New Jersey and watched a great show of lightning. Our daughter has always loved lightning, so she was thrilled. Gladys was a bit less thrilled.
I remember pieces of our conversation. She talked about the men she dated before she married, about typewriters and early word processors, and about her basement. We all trooped down to see it, except for Gladys, who couldn’t go down the stairs anymore. It was like a trip back to suburban 1950’s — they had a wet bar and old framed posters on the wall. Very cool.
Getting to know my husband’s family has been like learning about family all over again. My own family is a large tightly-knit nuclear family — 5 kids, 2 parents still married. But although we knew some of our other relatives, we weren’t terribly close to them growing up. My parents had complicated relationships with both of their families, so my take on extended family was either people you see once a year on a schedule, or people who sometimes drop in out of the blue and you are told they are related to you.
My husband’s family is exactly the opposite. He is an only child who grew up in a big extended family. He didn’t have to miss having siblings — he had so many “cousins” and “aunts” and “uncles” that he didn’t feel like an only child. I put the relationships in quotes only because, for his family, anyone around your age is referred to as “cousin,” no matter how distant, and anyone of your parents’ generation or older is aunt or uncle. Though there are also the “cousins” who are of his parents’ generation or further.
It was very confusing to me, but convenient that I wasn’t expected to keep track of the relationships exactly. “Cousin” would do just fine.
His mother’s family is especially close. They have something I’d never heard of before — a Family Circle. The family is a sort of non-profit association. They all descend from brothers that came over from Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. They still keep track of all the descendents, whether or not they actually know them. At the first Family Circle meeting I went to, a “long-lost cousin” appeared. She had always known she was part of the family, but didn’t feel it necessary to take part till later in life. They welcomed her like an old friend.
Another amazing thing about this family is that they welcome spouses pretty much as family, too. Even divorced spouses are still part of the circle. Aunt Gladys was not even related to my husband by blood (she married his mother’s uncle), but she was Family. He called her on a regular basis, even more since her recent illness. We sent her cards and pictures from the kids. She would sometimes call our house and say in her gentle voice, “Hello, Susana, it’s Aunt Gladys.” She was always pleasant to talk to.
My husband says that she never said an unkind word about anyone. Then he amended that to say that she spoke unkindly only about one person, George W. Bush. Even when she was housebound and complaining about her failing health, she was connected to the world.
Marrying into a family is such an interesting experience. I feel for women who live in parts of the world where, once they get married, they really do marry “into” the family. They leave the only nest they have known, and are thrust into another family’s functions…and disfunctions. Purely through chance, family ties, or astrological charts, they become part of a family that they may have no knowledge of. I wonder if their mothers can properly prepare them for this experience. It’s a bit like having your legs cut off and getting someone else’s sewn on. You have to learn to walk all over again.
I feel very lucky that I married into this family that welcomed Gladys so many years ago. I didn’t ask her about her early years in the family, how she felt about them, what it was like to marry in her day. One aspect of a death is all the questions that come up afterward. I didn’t get a lot of time, all added together, with Aunt Gladys. So I can think of a lot more that we didn’t talk about than what we did talk about.
But inextricable from my memories of Aunt Gladys is my marriage. We go into marriage so easily, yet it’s a very complicated thing. Not one of us can explore all the nuances of marrying “into” a family. It’s a life change, not just a change of status on the tax return.
The one thing I want my children to realize is how amazing and wonderful it is that they got to know a great-great-aunt. I never did. The other amazing thing is the wonderful person she was, and how we will miss her even though we saw her so seldom.
Aunt Happy-Hiney, she is alive in our hearts.
