Aunt Dot

My aunt Dorothy passed away in February.

My mother is the youngest of nine children. She has six brothers and two sisters. My aunt Peggy died in October of 2006 and now my mom is the only girl left.

My father called me at work to tell me that she had died. He wanted me to leave as fast as I could to get to the hospital to be with my mom. My aunt had been hospitalized for over a month but she had made what we considered to be a miraculous recovery and was even beginning to have some physical therapy in anticipation of being released. The kids were out of school that day for snow so my dad ended up babysitting when my mom was called to the hospital.

As I made the drive that day, I remembered one particular incident that made me laugh through my tears. Dorothy lived for many years in Denver, Colorado. At least once a year, my family would drive out there for vacation. Two days in the car each way. (There are at least three posts worth of material detailing the way my brother and I used to fight in that back seat during those long trips.) When we arrived, we basically spent two weeks watching the adults sit around my aunt's dining room table. They talked, laughed, drank a little and smoked a lot. We had a few cousins our age there so we were never really bored but we didn't normally do the family vacation kind of stuff on those trips. But on one particular visit, my dad decided that we needed to see the mountains. Anyone who has ever made a trip to Denver can tell you that 'seeing' the mountains is not really a problem, but my dad was convinced that we needed to drive up the friggin mountain to really experience it. ( He was going through a John Denver phase at the time, in his defense.) So we loaded up two cars and proceeded to drive up Mount Evans. I spent the whole drive anticipating my death. You would think that a mountain road would have plenty of guard rails and safety precautions. You would be wrong. When we finally (Thank You Jesus!) made it to the top, we parked the cars and got out to take in the view. My aunt Dorothy stumbled out of the car and noticed the two handicapped parking spaces. She opened her leather cigarette case (it had her initials stamped on it, btw)took out a cigarette and lit it. As she exhaled, she muttered, "What in the hell would an invalid be doing up here?" We laughed like we might never stop and, to this day, I cannot remember the view but I'll never forget our trip up that mountain.

I made it to the hospital in record time and found my mom, two of my uncles and my aunt's two sons waiting in a special room in the ICU. They were all still in that "stunned" phase and I realized that the grief had not even had time to manifest itself yet. My cousin Mark arrived just as they took us back to my aunt's room. As we stood in that room forming an semi-circle around her bed, I looked around and realized that this was the type of situation that our parents would have normally tried to shield us from. We had spent a lot of years at the "kiddie table" both literally and figuratively.

Our large family crowded the funeral home for two full days. I saw relatives I had not seen in a long time and that I probably won't see again until the next funeral. I spent much of my life being embarrassed of my big, loud family. Truth be told, there's quite a bit to be embarrassed of. Just the sheer number of aunts, uncles and cousins that are generated by a family of nine will virtually guarantee that a few nuts end up in the mix. We, perhaps, ended up with more than our fair share :) But with a lot of crazy comes an awful lot of love and laughter. And having witnessed their behavior through my aunt's illness and death, I know for sure that no one in my family dies alone.

See you on the mountaintop, Aunt Dot. Save me a parking spot, ok?