Aunt Anna's Transition

This is September 21, 2011, approaching the one-month passing of my dear aunt.  So, now I'd like to celebrate transitions, to recognize that closing doors are indeed doors, portals to new experiences.  Aunt Anna passed away on Tuesday, August 23, at 5:05 pm, and Friday, August 26, the family began the formal process of saying farewell, remembering her life well-lived, as she touched ours so profoundly.

The funeral home's "visiting" room where we gathered was far larger than was needed, for most of those attending were family.  My aunt has outlived most of her friends from the garden club, church, and community.   It's been many years since Uncle Clayton sold his last boat and withdrew their membership from the yacht club.  During the visitation, the grown children of Aunt Anna, of her sisters and brother, my dad, were busily catching up since many of us live several states apart, and as usual, have busy lives with new retirement for some, grown children, and for many, a wallet full of pictures and stories of grandchildren.  We could hear around the room, "We have let so much time go by" and "It's so good to see you."

And, of course, we fondly reminisced.  One of my memories brought smiles:  Auntie Anna's mobility challenges of the most recent years had her spending most of her time whizzing around her house's first floor in a wheelchair.  Greg and I enjoyed watching her in her kitchen, sometimes from a vantage point in the tv room looking back through the door to see her busily foot-pulling her chair back and forth.  Greg and I agreed she brought to mind a carnival duck-shoot, and she was the duck, only she would be singing as she came in and out of view of the kitchen door on her way to the kitchen sink or back across to the laundry room.

As one of my dad's four sisters, she carried "the gene" as do I:  we love to eat out.  We look forward to it and we plan our day around it.   And for meals at home, she had enough of her old world shopping attitude from her parents to feel the need to visit Publix daily where the staff all knew her by name.  It was serious business to sniff the canteloupe, and closely eye the pork chops.  Once or twice she told me how to select eggplant by whether its bottom had a recessed dimple, indicating the female, or a flat end, the male (if I remember correctly, I believe the better one has the flat end because the eggplant has fewer seeds, and is therefore less bitter.  Although, it seems to me, that equating bitterness with being female is counterproductive.  So, let's just forget that for now . . .).  

Saturday at 2 pm we gathered once again, this time at Tampa's Christ the King Catholic Church in its sleekly modern chapel, where the early afternoon sunlight streamed through turquoise, blue, and green stained glass windows, and onto the pale blond pews.  Following the brief service, including Mass, we were led, with three police-car escorts, to the graveyard several miles away for our final farewell before Anna was interred in a third floor crypt.  At age 92, Uncle Clayton held up splendidly and joined us at his home for a traditional Lebanese feast provided by Byblos, a local restaurant.  The rest of the afternoon, into the early evening, we stayed together, holding each other in the combined love of family and funny stories, until exhaustion set us on our way.

Now I can feel Aunt Anna's warming presence, as I have often felt that of my two wonderful parents.  And even though I can't call her on the phone or visit with her in her kitchen, I know that her spirit is near, alive and well.