After my morning cup of coffee, I generally drink water all the rest of the day. Sometimes, though, it’s just a little bit chilly for water, but I want to keep my water levels up so I brew a cup of herbal tea. If it’s around lunchtime, that tea might be black or green. We’ve kept a stock of tea on hand for ages; I personally have since I was in college. When the girls were younger, we’d take tea in the afternoons. Sometimes Mary, my older, would help me make homemade scones to go with it.
Though tea time isn’t really a thing for us anymore, we still all drink tea on occasion, and our pantry is about 1/8 tea. Honestly, the last thing we need is more tea, though we tend to have more black tea than anything because, again, we don’t drink black tea after a certain time of day.
My aunt Susan died last September, leaving Mom in charge of her estate. Mom asked if we wanted the teas that Susan had had, and since she and I apparently had the same taste in tea, I said, “Sure.” The other evening–earlier this week–I dug into one of those boxes of tea. I didn’t think a whole lot about my selection: Green tea with ginger. I brewed it, added a little honey, and as I sat sipping it, it hit me. Ginger. Then I remember the box of peppermint herbal tea I’d also brought back. Ginger. And peppermint. Used to calm upset stomachs. Susan must have drank those to stave off the nausea from the chemo. Then my heart pinched as it thought about her and realized the discomfort and pain she endured for the three years she battled the cancer that would eventually take her life. #cancersucks
One day, it’s going to hit me, and I’ll be able to mourn her death. The last decade or so–maybe a little more–it was like Susan didn’t really want me and the girls as her nieces anymore. It was frankly kind of confusing. We saw her at the family “high holies”–Easter dinner, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She was always a generous giver, and she remembered our birthdays. She was generally loving and fun when we came together at Mom and Dad’s and when we’d host the girls’ birthdays.
Something was off, though. Susan wasn’t a big fan of other people’s boundaries. When I declined to sit with Grandma while I was working an intense residency program, I got pushback. The job was only part of the reason behind my unwillingness to do it. I adored my grandma, even named my older daughter after her. But when I’d made a special trip a few days each week to stay with Grandma in the month leading up to my wedding, I never got any gratitude back. I didn’t get gas money, either, but that’s a little thing. I could suck up the lack of “Hey, thanks”; it was harder to tolerate all the criticism. Every day Susan would find something else I’d done wrong when I was doing the best I knew how without any guidance.
That’s just one example. There are others that I don’t see a point in going into. Susan used to have a small property in our county over in the spitting-distance-from-the-beach section that she’d come down to a few times during the year. After she sold it, she’d stay at a hotel on the island. When I found out she was coming this way, I’d invite her to drop by. If she didn’t want to do that, I offered that I could bring the girls over to the island. She couldn’t go to that part of the county without coming either three miles or fifteen miles from us, depending if she wanted to take the back roads or the interstate. She never responded to either offer. My mom was confused (she may still be) as to why I didn’t make more of an effort to see Susan when her illness kept her closer to home. Susan’s house is 2 1/2 hours away from us, one way. Maybe I didn’t feel the desire to do that when it seemed clear to me that she didn’t want to see us even when it would’ve required no effort on her part.
Susan had a penchant for drama, though she had zero tolerance for other people’s drama. Scott Lyon talks about holding grudges as a form of drama addiction, and that was definitely a gift Susan had. She once held a grudge for twenty years against a cousin who lived literally all the way on the other side of the country. She held people hostage with the threat of her grudges. Christmas Eve 2002, Grandpa had a heart attack. The hospital he went to had recently come under the auspices of the hospital where I did my internship and contract chaplaincy. I’d grabbed my employee’s badge as I raced out the door that night. We beat the ambulance (but we won’t talk about that). When we got word that the ambulance was a minute out, I clipped my badge on, introduced myself, and asked the charge nurse if I could wait by the ambulance bay. She allowed me to. Susan reported to the family, “Sara went back there and flashed her badge around.” Certainly sounds BiGgEr and more dramatic, doesn’t it? But it far from represents my professional demeanor in reality. (Did you know drama addiction’s a real thing? You can scope out this article on it here, and check out Scott Lyon’s book, as well. For you podcast lovers, Jordan Harbringer had Scott on his podcast.)
I don’t know what happened. Again, possibly it’s boundaries. The thing that will hit me one day is the realization that the cool aunt I had growing up is gone. I mean, she’s been gone for longer than she’s been dead, but there was always the hope, ya know? Susan and I had the best times when I was a kid. We went to the zoo with Grandma; my younger cousin was there once or twice, too. We went to the place at the beach. I could talk to her about things that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about. It was with Susan that I had pizza for breakfast the first time.
She showed up for me. She came to my dance recitals and graduations. She never married and never had any kids of her own. For seventeen years, I was it. Then my little (haha! He’s over six feet tall!) cousin was born. Susan doted on us and adored us. My cousin lives several hundred miles away so she didn’t get to see him but maybe once a year or so. She showed up for him, too.
One day, it’s going to hit me. I’ll be drinking a cup of tea or walking along a beach, and bam! The tears will pour out unchecked, and my heart will break. I’ll grieve losing the aunt I once had, and I’ll also grieve the loss of any opportunity for us to be family again, anything close to what we once were.
Just writing these words is a wakeup call to me. I have an honorary “auntie” who I text with routinely and meet up with for coffee every so often. But I still also have two blood aunts, one I haven’t really spoken to beyond Christmas cards since Mary ran away. I need to make sure I don’t again encounter “too late.”
