Almost a year...

Alise and Mara, Summer 2009

It's been almost a year since the last time I visited my great-aunt Alise. I'm not sure of the dates exactly, but I know I was heavily pregnant and Joel was with me- so it was late March or early April. She did not look anything like she does in the above picture. When we visited her this last time, she was, quite literally, on her death bed. She was frail and very, very thin. She was hardly conscious the day we were there. I stood over her, silently letting tears flood down my cheeks, Joel behind me, holding me up. I didn't know what to say, or how to say it. I was very sad that our baby was still on the inside, and that Alise would not get the opportunity to meet him/her. I said to Joel, "I really hope we have a girl, so we can use her name." Benita Alise was only two weeks old when we all went to my great-aunt Alise's funeral.

For some reason, she's been coming up in my thoughts very often lately. Maybe it's because Beni is nearing her first birthday, and I can't help but think all the time about, "this time last year." Maybe I keep thinking about her, because I finally have the emotional head space to deal with her loss. I don't know the day she died. I was at home with a less than two week old baby- I have no idea about ANYTHING that was going on then outside of the 3ft right around me! I do remember, though, Joel getting the phone call. He spoke to my step-mom, and they spoke for quite a while, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I was eating dinner, Beni was asleep on my chest...or maybe she was eating dinner to...either way, she was in my arms, on my chest. When Joel got off the phone, he knelt down beside me, and very solemnly told me that she has passed. The food got stuck in my mouth, and I felt silly doing something as simple as eating dinner when she was passing from this world.

Needless to say, a lot has happened since that day- it's been a very busy time. Babies are all-consuming! Therefore, it is possible, that I haven't actually mourned her loss as fully as I might have, had she passed at some other point in my life.

I know she couldn't be with me forever, but she was SUCH a special person to me. She was always my special (great-) aunt. I spent loads of time at her house as a small child when my family still lived in Indianapolis. I have a feeling that to some extent, as life may not have been too rosy in my own home, I was more comfortable at her house than anywhere else. After we moved to Kalamazoo, we still visited often, and I never tired of spending time with her. I loved her little routines and habits. I love, love, loved listening to her stories- especially when she and her sister (who passed in... 2003? 2004?) would tell them together. They were like a comedy routine. It never got old. She was often a comedy act on her own... the older she got, the more bent over she got- to the point where by the end, she was a walking L-shape. During this visit when these photos were taken she made some comment about how she stays out of the kitchen saying something like, "It's not worth going in there...I just bump my head on the counter tops!"
Alise was fiercely independent. As she got older and less able physically, she would rig all kinds of systems around her house to help her accomplish the things she still wanted to be able to do on her own. She lived on her own, in her own house for my whole life until her last days, when she was cared for by family. I know that wasn't always the case- she had been married once upon a time- but that was before my time, and not who I knew her as.

It is impossible for me to write any of this without crying many more hearty tears over her being gone. It still feels like a very new, raw hole in my heart. For the last 7 years that I lived abroad, every single time I went home, I made absolutely sure to make a trip down to Indianapolis to visit her. Sometimes it was only for a quick overnight...once even just an afternoon... but I always made sure to stop by. I was very lucky to have had her be such a big part of my life.

If there might be one regret I have about living abroad, it is that there were so many years spent so very far away from her. She would always mention that if I lived in Indianapolis, I could live rent-free just for taking care of a few small things. I wish I could have rearranged the world a bit for a while... and made it so that I could have been there with her, helping her, but still having all the adventures I did.

I can't but be sad when I think that Beni will never get to know her. I look forward to the day when Beni asks where her name comes from, how we chose it, and I'll get to tell her about her great-great-aunt. I imagine that had she lived a bit longer, they would have loved each other. I can't see it being any other way.

It does make me wonder if Beni will have a great-aunt, or some other family member, who will be as special to her as Alise was to me. I remember watching my aunt Lilija dance with Beni at her krustabas and thinking, "That's her great-aunt..."

I suppose it's only natural, babies are born, and the elderly die, generations come and go.... it never makes it any easier to lose someone we love. It's been nearly a year since we lost this amazing woman... and yet I still think of her often, miss her dearly, and luckily, find myself smiling at happy memories of her that float up at random moments. You'll be in my heart forever, Alisite!