Mothers and Aunties

Taken in the late 1930s, this photo
is believed to be my aunts Vera
and Agnes (L-R) with three of
what would be six brothers.

“I’m putting Mom on the phone,” said the caller from the other end of the nation. “She can’t hear you, but she wants to talk to you. So just listen.”

At that, my cousin handed the receiver to my Aunt Agnes, deaf from complications of kidney failure. I began crying as I listened to her tired, whispery voice tell how much she appreciated my newsy family letters.
After a few minutes, her daughter got back on the line and said her mother was done talking. As I hung up, I realized how even a little thing—writing about my family and sending photos—meant a lot to this aunt who loved her big sister, my mother, so much. Mom had died at age 59 of cancer, and my dad of a heart attack six months later. I was orphaned at 31, still single. My mother was the second child of a family of nine (two sisters, six brothers) to die.

I think about my mother and her siblings each year as Mother's Day comes. I feel the commercialized hype of gifting mothers that day limits the picture of those in nurturing roles. I do feel blessed to be a mother, having waited for marriage until age 34 and then having children at 35 and 37. Now grown and on their own, those children have honored me by making godly choices. And while I missed my own mother, feeling the pang of her not knowing these grandchildren, I had a dear, servant-hearted mother-in-law. Living next door to us the last 20 years of her life, she had full participation in their lives.

As for my aunts, my letters to them in a small way helped carry on the legacy of my mother, who so faithfully knit her large family of origin together with an investment in postage. All had struggled from their impoverished beginnings (their father was a Norwegian immigrant farmer, the mother disabled with a short leg as a result of polio). The father died young of a heart attack, with the youngest boys still at home to raise.

Because they lived so far away, I didn't spent much personal time with my aunts. One lived a long time in Panama, then in Florida—completely the opposite end of the nation from me. The other lived in Sweden, Malawi, and finally Oregon. Yet both aunts cared about me as part of the family tree. When I had my first baby, Agnes sent a baby blanket richly embroidered with nursery rhyme characters. I’m sure it was her labor of love, as she was a skilled needle worker. My mother’s other sister, Vera, sent my second child, a girl, a couple toddler sundresses she’d sewn. I kept in regular touch with both until their deaths.

When Mother's Day comes with a sorrow of missing our own mothers, we don't have to stay there.  If we're grieving a mother who still lives, but was emotionally unavailable during a vulnerable time, it's important to move beyond resentment and love her despite her failures. And recognizing other adult women (related by blood or just friends) as important to us shows character and maturity. For me, the fruit of caring came on an ordinary day, like the one I answered the phone and just listened to a faraway auntie share her appreciation for the simple gift of letters. Through staying connected with her, more than I realized, I had also honored her sister, my mom.