Another woman from Tennessee died at the end of August.
But she wasn’t a top-charting artist. She wasn’t a cultural icon. And she was from the other side of the state.
She was my great aunt.
Her death wasn’t earth-shattering or all-consuming for me in the way it was for her children, grandchildren, or oldest great-grandchildren.
But she also wasn’t one of those relatives that you know of vaguely, or can barely remember when your mom shares random updates about them.
She babysat me a lot as a kid, and I would see her maybe once or twice a year when I was visiting for the holidays.
I can’t remember what exactly spurred it, but her health had been deteriorating for months.
When my mother told me that she had passed, I remember feeling somber but not reacting at all.
My aunt texted me before a funeral date had been set, asking if I was planning on going.
I hesitated.
It seemed like a logistical nightmare from the money, to the time I’d have to take off of a second job I just started, to my 9-5 workload.
But I thought about the last time someone I cared about died, and the regrets and guilt that still occasionally gnaw at me about what I didn’t do.
And I knew on some level that the short term headache would be worth avoiding years of remorse.
She died on a Friday, and I waited until Tuesday to buy the cheapest trip I could get to Boston.
It ended up putting me on a flight that landed at 1am for a funeral that I’d have to leave the house for by 7am.
I’d had a post nasal drip for weeks that was a mild nuisance, but didn’t seem like a huge deal. The day or so before I was supposed to leave, I started feeling a slight pressure in my head, but didn’t think much of it.
The Uber that took me to the airport reeked of cigarettes, and out of nowhere I felt my symptoms aggravated. Then on my trips to Boston, as the plane descended I felt debilitating, piercing pain in one ear that I assume mimicked medieval torture.
I was probably up until 3 or 4 in the morning getting work done, but after I took whatever medication my mom bought for me, I didn’t have much of a fighting chance. Within 20 minutes I was struggling to keep my eyes open.
Shortly after I’d fallen asleep, it was time to get up for the funeral.
When I first glanced at the casket, I wasn’t emotional. I thought she looked lovely.
My mom made a comment about how the stylist she’d had her whole life did her hair, and she would have combed out the curls if she had her way.
I thought I’d matured as I remembered a funeral I attended in college, where I couldn’t bring myself to look at the body.
I went back to my seat. I joked with my siblings. I greeted relatives I hadn’t seen in years.
And then we had to do some kind of formal procession of family members.
I stood above what remained of her, posed and lifeless, with nowhere to look but directly at her.
I didn’t make it back to my pew before I burst into tears.
I didn’t know why it was happening. I honestly didn’t think I’d cry the whole time.
Maybe there’s a difference between knowing logically that someone’s gone and having to stare directly at all that’s left of them, and the evidence of all they used to be.
The repass was booked in a space too small for the number of mourners that showed up, and I struggle to imagine a scenario in which I could have finished a full plate of the food, no matter my blood alcohol level, to put things delicately.
But it didn’t really matter.
In a cramped space without enough seating and appetizers that were anything but appetizing, I felt overwhelmed not with what had gone wrong, but with love for my family and a profound appreciation for my great aunt’s legacy.
She worked for the post office for 30 years before retiring. She had four sons. 2 were police officers.
Something about her story felt so quintessentially American.
Her husband left her for another woman; I think before I was born. As long as I could remember, she lived with one of her sons, his wife, and three kids in a suburb of Boston.
I never remembered her talking about it much.
She was always calm. I never remember her raising her voice at me. And that means a lot because if you think I’m insane now you should have seen me as a child.
I remember climbing on top of her and prying her eyes open bright and early on a weekend morning she was at my parents’ house, asking if she was awake.
She just kind of laughed. “I am now.”
She was quiet, and gentle, and loved Chinese food and the casino.
A part of me wishes I would have gone with her once, but I have a feeling I just would have slowed her down.
In the aftermath of it all, I remember my mother saying that a couple weeks before the end, she’d gone to visit her in the hospital. She complained that I hadn’t wished her a happy birthday.
The thing is, I almost hadn’t.
I abhor groupchats. To me, they usually feel tedious and getting too many notifications at once makes me feel like I’m shortcircuiting. I mute them almost immediately after I’m put in them.
I didn’t see the 19 unread messages for her birthday until it was nearly over.
I didn’t know if it was worth sending well wishes at that point. I wondered if she would even notice or care.
But I sent it anyway, and I couldn’t be happier that I did because even though I didn’t realize it at the time, it would be my last opportunity to do so.
When she thought that I’d forgotten her, or doubted her importance in my life, my mother was able to pull it up and show her that even if I was late in my delivery, I acknowledged her last trip around the sun.
That thread meant more to my great aunt than I understood, and 15 seconds of effort from me was a small but tangible reassurance to her in her final days of what she meant to me.
Since I moved away from home, I’ve never been great about keeping in touch with family beyond the immediate.
It’s never intentional. It’s just easy to forget in the neverending crisis that is adulthood.
It seems like as soon as you catch your breath, something else goes wrong, and if you aren’t careful, you can easily neglect your relationships with people that live a few miles from you; nevermind a thousand.
In the past year or so, I’ve tried to be better about it.
I honestly think the only reason I’m trying to improve in that area – or aware that I need to improve in the first place – is because I’m growing in my relationship with God, and the Holy Spirit is convicting me of my selfishness and many other shortcomings.
At the end of any of our lives, we’re not going to be thinking about the time we got laid off or the money we had to spend repairing our roofs. We’re going to be consumed with thoughts of the people we loved and the people that loved us.
And it’s important that we live like it while we can.
There are things that the elders in our lives value that we can easily take for granted.
You might not value a phone call every 2 weeks, but your aging uncle does. And even if you can barely follow what they’re saying or most of the conversation is them asking you to repeat yourself because they’re hard of hearing, you’ll never regret showing up for the people who made you who you are.
Even beyond our families, I think people have a bad habit of digging their heels in on expressions of affection that come naturally to them, never challenging themselves to tailor demonstrations of good will to the other person.
If you spend any time on social media, you’ll likely run into conversations about “the village” and its deterioration.
A lot of people point to how atomized and isolated the world has become, with asking for things like help moving or a ride to the airport beginning to feel taboo.
And a lot of people are beginning to realize that a good life can’t be lived for oneself. They say “inconvenience is the price you pay for community” and they’re right.
There was nothing convenient about getting to or from my great aunt’s funeral.
But it was worth it. It always will be.
Whether it’s the family God gave you or the family you found along the way, do the best you can to love them not silently and from afar, or a vague thought that comes and goes between errands, or only when it fits neatly into your schedule, but constantly, in terms they can understand, and when it’s completely disruptive.
what do you think?