My aunt Mary Ann passed away yesterday, surrounded by her family in hospice care after a long battle with cancer.
My aunt Mary Ann was my dad’s oldest sister, the oldest of six kids, a family of six Mexican-Americans growing up in fifties and sixties in southeastern Kansas. She was steadfast in her beliefs and opinions that, when she was younger, sometimes drove other people crazy. I was the oldest daughter and the only grandchild for five wonderful years in a large Mexican family, and to me, my aunt was mesmerizing.
She was a nurse who’d served in Vietnam – it was in the Army that she met her lifelong partner and incredible husband, Mike – and so she sat me down when I was three or four and read to me from the classic book, “Where Did I Come From?” I still remember the drawings of the squiggly sperm. When I said the word “vagina” at the dinner table that evening, my mom hit the roof! Believing that children should understand their bodies and people should not be ashamed of sex, I think my aunt pulled that fast one on a lot of parents in our family.
Mary Ann lived next door to my grandmother, so whenever I visited my grandmother, I visited Mike and Mary Ann. They’d lived for a time in Atlanta -- a fantastical big city compared to our little town of Independence, Kansas – so they had this air of adventure. Of seeking. Of questioning. They were part of the family and town, but at that time, also kind of bigger than it. To my little eyes. They didn’t go to mass and that, to me, was excitingly scandalous.
Mary Ann and Mike wanted children of their own. But were struggling to have them. I remember her sitting in a bathrobe at my grandmother’s house, very sad, smiling at me with tears in her eyes. I greedily soaked up their attention. They never talked at me – they talked to me. They asked questions. They were relaxed, open, interested in my company in a way that I think little kids notice is rare. I wasn’t merely cute to them. I felt interesting.
You see how easily talking about “her” becomes talking about “them.” My aunt and uncle cultivated a loving, respectful partnership that today, after watching relationships for 46 years, I’m still in awe of. It’s the ideal we all aspire to but so seldom see achieved. I can’t think about my uncle Mike too much or I won’t be able to finish this. There’s one thing I know about my aunt Mary Ann; she’d want him to continue on in a happy, fulfilled life.
Mary Ann and Mike did have children. Ryan and Ross. And then, so much changed. They embraced the town, embraced the church, became the kind of family that hundreds of people could and did rely on. And they did it with a selflessness that was entirely giving; you’d never call them pillars of society because they wouldn’t want their dedication to God and their neighbors to stand out that way. Mary Ann approached service with the same straightforward clarity that she approached the “birds and the bees” talks: Of course, this is something that should be provided. Of course she will provide it.
Mary Ann loved those boys. She loved the fabulous wives those boys brought to their family. She loved all of the grandchildren. They bought a house with a pool and were summer camp for their large, loving family. My strong, opinionated aunt became softer and gentler and more focused on what I believed she thought of as her greatest achievement: this loving, dedicated, funny, hard-working, joyous family she’d built.
But one thing, didn’t change. My aunt Mary Ann – and my uncle Mike – always made me feel special. They invited me and my brother on trips in their camper. As a teen, they brought me along on their CYO trips. They came to my high school graduation. They came to visit me and my young family, bringing my grandmother along, too, in DC. When my oldest graduated from high school, they came. My cousin Ryan told me, “She has always been so proud of you and how hard you’ve worked. She has always had that work ethic and loved seeing it in our family members.”
That she would see something of herself in me is an honor I can’t express.
I hope she knew how much I admired her. In her steadfast and straightforward way, I have to think she did. I’ve never really thought about angels, but I have a weird certainty that our large family now has a ferocious angel looking after us.
I love you, Mary Ann.
