I Invited My Dead Aunt to Dinner

When people die their paths to destiny stop, and all the roads they are traveling on in their journey of life end. They are infinitely trapped in whatever circle of life they began. We who are left behind are acutely aware of this end for our loved one. It is painful to think about what will never be for them. My aunt was one of those people to me, that had so much potential, but by the time she had died her journey had defiantly ended and her circle was complete. As we reflect on the lives that our loved ones lived and the ends that they meet, sometimes with grace, sometimes not, and it really doesn’t matter because in the end they are done, and we are meant to carry on without them or so we think. We can look back and notice that even though they have gone the distance, our lives are still entangled with their memories. Often times we must reconcile where to put those memories, and how that person still fits into our life. If we look close enough we might find that they are still there lingering in our experiences. My aunt will always be there in mine. 1

I am not sure who invited her to dinner, if it was her idea or mine. I had stopped thinking about her as part of my life for a measure of time that was even lost to me. Even as I grew into adulthood, and she was still living, I left her in my past. I think I believed that she was a part of my childhood that in so many other ways I felt I had to leave, and I had no reason to bring her along. I was struggling to cut my own path. I was struggling to deal with the dynamics of my own life, and I was struggling to become my own person. I didn’t realize how much of the person I was going to become had to do with the people that I wanted to leave in my past at the time. 2

She lived and died with sadness, but not much pomp and circumstance in my mind. Then one day six years after she had passed into eternity her obituary showed up in my life as I was sorting through some old books and papers trying to decide what to keep and what to throw away. At first glance I set the obituary aside, choosing to place her history in the front of an old book of mine for safe keeping so that it would not be folded or torn, it was miraculously in great shape considering that it was free floating among all those forgotten items. Then thinking of only my children and how some day they might want to look at this obituary to find out more about their ancestry, I slid it out of the book trying to decide of a better place for its safe keeping. I lifted the yellowing piece of news paper up, glanced at it, and realized that I had forgotten how beautiful she was. The picture stared back at me, in it she was grinning, her sweet dimples in plain view. I recalled her honey blonde hair and her cornflower blue eyes that often twinkled at me with acceptance on my darkest of days. Feelings were stirring inside of me now, and while I was not sure what they were, I was sure that I wanted to continue to have this obituary in a place where I could think about her more, about her place in my history more. I took it to my computer, and entered her history into a web site that is sort of like an online graveyard. I know that sounds morbid, but when your loved ones live far away, it is a nice place to go write reflections to or for them, and to let other people know that they existed. It is a great place for permanent record keeping. 3

As I rose up to the Thanksgiving sunshine, and as always I reached for my steaming hot cup of coffee, while sitting at my computer desk to check my email, a constant morning ritual that I have developed whether it was Thanksgiving or not. I glanced down on my computer desk, and there she was smiling at me, like she had waited all night for my return. I suddenly realized that I was homesick. With my extended family all living miles away I had not had thoughts of taking my own small family home for the holidays. I looked at her face, and my thoughts filled with warm memories of my childhood and the long forgotten childhood experiences with her. Thanksgiving day as an adult was all to often is about cooking, cleaning, and perhaps watching a little T.V. As a child it had always meant so much more. There were no cooking responsibilities, and occasionally we might have to clean, but it was mostly about the whole family staying home all day, eating foods we had grown to expect for our holiday meal, and running outside in the crisp air to play with numerous cousins that I now only get to see at the occasional family funeral as we say goodbye to another piece of our childhood that we allow to slip away with the death of a loved one. 4

This Thanksgiving I realized that I had a family guest in my home right out of my childhood. It was my aunt. I had invited her to dinner. She may have passed on from this world, but in another world, one where my childhood memories live on, she is right there, waiting only to be recalled, so that we can once again together return to the well worn paths of our lives that we traveled together so may years ago, but like yesterday in my mind. 5