Late Tuesday night, my world crumbled a little more.
I woke up Wednesday to see a message from one of my cousins: my Great-Aunt Mona had passed in her sleep.
It wasn’t a long message; there weren’t any flowery soliloquies, no enrapturing monologues. It was short and simple – something my family has a tendency to lean toward: short, precise, and straight to the point.
Unless we’re telling a story. Then we really get into the details and flowery cross-stitched words.
My aunt was a spit-fire, to be sure!
She was a woman who loved telling stories, whether it be about her travels or helping her sister-in-law wrangle her little ball of erratic endless energy that was my father.
In fact, one of her favorite stories to tell was when she had my then four-year-old dad all cleaned up, dressed in a crisp white shirt and blue trousers, and having to tell that little boy not to go jumping in puddles. Of course, being the little mischievous child that he was, my dad had no desire to listen. Instead, he glared at my aunt through his (according to her memory) severely scratched up coke-bottle glasses and huffed, “I’ll tell my mumma on you.”
Without even skipping a beat, my aunt responded, “uh-huh. Sure you will, Teddy.”
Well, my father must have been one hell of an annoying child, because it wasn’t long after where my aunt had to kick him out of the house so she could clean.
That was a big mistake.
Aunt Mona happened to look up through the window a few minutes later, and held in a silent prayer.
My father was scrunched down as cloooose to the ground as he could, balancing on his tippy-toes, peering into a giant, muddy, rain puddle.
It wasn’t long after that when my father trudged into the house, completely soaked.
I will miss my aunt terribly. I will miss her stories about my family, and I will miss sitting at her feet, listening to everyone’s mismatched words and feeling her motherly energies so similar to my own Nana.
She was 93 years old when she passed, so I know she lived a good long life. But that doesn’t take the sting away from the loss.
Still, I’d like to think of her as sitting alongside her sisters and my Nana, eating all the lobster she can and gossiping about heaven only knows what.
Though she may be physically gone from this world, I believe my family has gained another angel.
I’ll miss you, Aunt Mona.
L.J. LaBree 