In Awe of Aunties

Past, Present, and Future

“But she’s not your real Aunt.” The memory of my former roommates voice wrung in my ears for days after learning about my Aunts death. Unconfirmed at the time, but likely a suicide. Two years prior, I was sharing my amusement that my Aunt Pam was picking me up all the way from Boston just to drive me back to see Justin Bieber at the Jingle Ball. At nineteen and sharing a birth year with “the Bieb”s, I was starting to reject his fame, but was amused by the idea that my Aunt was just looking for a teenage companion. Pam didn’t invite me for my own interest- she just wanted a teenager to join her because at the ripe age of fifty-four she needed a good excuse to go to a sold-out arena filled with girl scout troops and teen couples. That was Pam. She did what she wanted when she wanted. Shameless and free. Never too old nor too young. She was an Auntie. 

But my former roommate and best friend insisted on clarifying whenever I used the term Aunt, that my Aunt was really just my mom’s friend. Best friend. I clarified. From college. Senior year, actually. They were roommates. Essential information because I had multiple “Aunt’s” from different parts of my moms life, all distinct in their own right.

I wasn’t even angry, just confused. I even had some pity for her. Did my roommate not have any Aunties of her own? I saw my moms female friendships no different than my own. My friends and I were not yet Aunts, but we were most definitely sisters. Maybe there was something I didn’t understand. Maybe we called each other sisters because we didn’t have any of our own. 

But we knew that we were. My two best friends from my hometown and I were so far apart as individuals that we even belonged to completely separate social circles all of high school. But we laughed, giggled, and even thudded against the floor in Jess’s bedroom as we all tried to fit into a pair of Kathleen’s gaucho pants. A true symbol of our “sisterhood”¹. Three completely different sizes, completely different people, who shared truths on a cellular level that no one else could see. We spoke a secret language with one another, maintaining some of the naivety of when we first met in grade school but applied to the “mature” topics of our current lives. Jess and Kathleen called on my most childish urges and gave me a place to feel secure as I developed. Isn’t that what sisters do?

When Pam died, none of us were ready. Of course, it was sudden. Unexpected. Almost too mature for even my mother to wrap her head around. How could someone with so much life, so much vigor, so much youth…can I say… choose? How did someone who seemed to choose to live everyday, more intentionally than the rest of us, choose not to?² 

We also did not know what to do with my mother’s grief. Prior to this death I had seen my mom lose two sick parents. I thought the process would mostly be the same. Loss, obviously. But also acceptance, appreciation, honor, longing, love, lineage. But the loss of her best friend was not the same. There was denial for too long. Uncharacteristic even. She was lost, chaotic, distracted, desperate to create joy yet unable to find it. She was both untethered and trapped at the same time. Spiritual in her own regard, she found my Aunt in bees. Buzzing and dancing their way to the blossom of a flower, turning their powdery bits into sweet nectar for others to enjoy. Finding the beauty in life to create sweet nourishment for themselves and others. Commanding your attention as you cross their path, guiding you to look around and enjoy what’s in front of you.

There was always something different about my mom around my Aunties. A groundedness. An openness. A carelessness even. It was as if when they gathered, they all let their hair down³. Around my Aunties, my mom was the same person she was at home but composed. Not from deception but authenticity. She could be vulnerable yet calm, confident even. Chipper and relaxed. We all see many different versions of our mothers but I always wondered if this was the most authentic. The version in which she was seen, validated, and deeply loved. I adored this version of her too. I too wanted this gathering- one of decades long love that reunited with ease⁴.

Aunties are the parts of our mothers that are neglected in motherhood. Not by choice or reason, but by distraction. Parts accidently lost over time as their lives revolve around nourishing who their children become. Focusing all of their resources on their offspring even at their own expense. Does a mother ever really stop feeding from the breast?

Mothers are never allowed to stop being mothers, except when with their sisters. How silly is it then, that we typically see Aunties the same way we see our mothers? As women meant to serve us, nurture us. As they paint our nails, take us out to brunch, and give us life lessons late at night on their couch. How self-centered are we! Aunties were not made for us! They are women that mother nature created to be forever tied to one another. To love and nourish one another for eternity.

It’s taken me almost nine years to finally understand why my mom still grieves. Close friendships are unbelievably essential. They pull out parts of yourself that you don’t know how to nourish on your own. Some that you don’t know need to be nourished, or even exist for that matter. Isn’t that why so many of us can be best friends with the most unlikely people? Adoring qualities about them that we can never imagine even wanting for ourselves. Once that person is gone, how do you find the part of yourself that you were with them on your own? Nourish her even? My mom has followed bees for almost a decade, a symbol of joy sent from Pam. The flowers that she’s pollinated all these years are finally blooming, and now the person my mom has always been with her sisters is becoming who she is all the time.

1. Why didn’t Ann Brashares use elastic guachos instead of jeans? So much more realistic and symbolic of the bond between women.

2. I don’t think that death-by-suicide is a choice. The experience is incredibly personal and I think it’s essential for people to have the space to explore the complexities of this cause of death. In this statement, I am writing exactly how I felt at the time of her death and how my brain was trying to make sense of an incredibly confusing and painful event.

3. Metaphorically, since they were all still rocking 80s feathered bobs.

4. But rejected finding it through a sorority like my mothers friends.