For my mom, Jan, who is a pretty cool chick!
Dear Aunt Dorothy:
Feliz Navidad Prospero Año y Felicidad
I remember that's how you started out your annual Christmas letter. Mom always insisted on two things, that we (my sister and I) read your letter and that we write you one of our own. A thank you letter. You always sent us a check for Christmas and as your (and ours) years advanced, the sum grew larger. I remember, hating to write that letter. Hating it with a deep dark purple passion. Mom always proofread them and sometimes there were rewrites and grammar revisions. She really put a premium on us completing them properly. Usually, it was during Christmas vacation from school and I wanted to use up every last precious second of freedom in selfish pursuits, sleeping in, reading non-school books, going to movies and I admit I resented any time 'wasted'.
Mom insisted though and so I would think and labor over it, filling up pages with my large almost illegible cursive scrawl, thanking you for money and telling you what I was doing. I can't help but wonder if you enjoyed the letters at all? I'm sure they were a bit tedious.
You would probably be distressed to hear that the art of writing the thank you letter has all but disappeared. I don't know that I have ever received one for a gift.
I'm glad you gave us the money then. Instead of making us wait for an inheritance.
If I had the money now, I probably would do something boring and adult, like deposit it into my IRA. Truthfully, what I did with the money was to use it to buy presents. Back in those days, money was always tight and I was always 'short' at Christmas.
Well Aunt Dorothy, I'm an aunt myself now. A maiden one, like you were. I think now, I've started to understand what you were trying to say to us all of those years ago. I more fully 'get' all of the virtues you wanted to instill in us, a love of knowledge, intellectual curiosity, to love animals, respect others and care about the environment. Having no children yourself, you wanted to leave a mark, a legacy, some sort of immortality when you were no longer with us.
Your Christmas letters were full of your pursuit of making the world a better place. Your hosting of students, teaching English, your artistic endeavors, your garden and beloved dogs and cats all your way of trying to leave the world a little better place than it was. I didn't understand that at the time, I'm beginning to now. In my 40's now, you start to leave the self-centered brat behind more and more.
In case you didn't know it, you have left a lasting mark in my life. I'll never forget two experiences you shared with my sister and I. An outdoor amphitheater opera concert in the Sangre De Cristo mountain range and Shakespeare in the Park in Santa Fe. I'd never experienced things like that before, and may never have, if not for you. To this day, I love opera and I'm fortunate to have the ability to hear it frequently on satellite radio. Very few written words thrill me more than Shakespeare's immortal poems, comedies and tragedies.
As I mentioned, I'm an aunt myself now and I feel that sense sometimes, as you must have done, of wanting to have an impact on the lives of my nieces and nephews. Trying to share wisdom, praying for them, sharing favorite books and philosophies, hoping that their eyes will be opened to all that life can be. Just as you must have found, it's difficult when there is so much distance between you, both physically and emotionally.
Sometimes I found it hard to relate to you, being that you were so accomplished, so crusading and pioneering. Magna Cum Laude graduate, WAC in WW II. My mom always described you 'as a force'. In the old home movies I've seen of you, you are magnetic, your looks and joie de vivre. I've struggled with joie de vivre myself, being introverted and shy. I've only recently begun to sort of claim for myself a feeling of beauty and independence. I like to think that some of it was passed on to me from you.
Politically, I don't know that we are all that similar, except to say that I am as passionate as you were in wanting the best for the country. Maybe we might go about it in different ways, but at the root of things, I don't think we would be all that dissimilar in our belief in the independent rights of man.
You were always distressed that I didn't read Louis L'Amour novels, and I'm sorry to say that I never really changed my opinions on that. I've always been somewhat of a deep romantic type. This is not to say there isn't romance in the Western cowboy that L'Amour wrote of, it's just that when I pined after a man on a horse, he was usually in a kilt, as the Laird of a clan or a English Dandy on a white horse with breeches and tri-corn hat.
I'm sorry we didn't talk more. In my only visit to Santa Fe, I remember it wasn't until the night before I was to leave, that we really 'talked' and I shared with you my thoughts, dreams and hopes for the future. We finally 'connected' that night. I think it's what the visit had been all about. Up until that point, I'd been struggling with the altitude, (living my whole life at sea level in Florida to suddenly be thrust into the mountains took some getting used to), homesickness and I guess I wasn't 'up' to trying to figure out what you were trying to 'say'. I wish I'd been able to see that visit with adult eyes, to really appreciate the majesty and wonder of the mountains, to get your joke about the Rio Grande not being so 'Grande', to understand what you saw in Navajo pottery and beading, why you wanted us to feel the plight of those living on the pueblos. I only saw the appalling poverty and felt the relentless heat of the sun. For a Floridian, the lack of humidity just felt 'wrong'. The lack of rain implausible. I'm sorry it took until now for me to 'get it'.
You might be glad to know that I've tried to pick up a bit with the ancestry digging. You have justifiable pride in the family. Some of them were quite remarkable. Through this, I begin to understand that I'm just a link in this chain that has gone on for so many decades.
So, in this posthumous thank you letter. I sincerely express my gratitude for all that you did and said with an eye toward building my character. I hope you'd be proud of the woman I am today. I've worked hard and striven for all that I have. I am strong and independent and maybe in my own way, "a force".
I miss you and your sister, Helen more than I can say. You presence in my life has never really disappeared though. It's there every time I look in the mirror, every time I recite the poem about the Goops, every book I read, and every time I strive in my own way to make the world a better place.
Your Great Niece,
Jill
No comments:
Post a Comment