Goodbye Aunt Edie

My family lost a great lady a couple of days ago. My Aunt Edie (who is my mother's sister) died after a brief illness. We will all miss her very much and my thoughts are with my cousins during this hard time. She was one tough and funny lady and I'm going to miss her tremendously.

During the summers when I was growing up, Aunt Edie and Uncle Woody would have us all over for cookouts almost every weekend. They had a huge backyard and a pool, one of those above-ground circular jobs, so all of us kids (meaning all the cousins) were thrilled to go there. My mother's side of the family is pretty big (my mom was one of 8 kids, all of whom started their own families) so these summer weekends at the Wood's house were pretty crowded. The house I grew up in was pretty small and although there was a decent sized backyard, our landlord fancied himself a gardner and therefore wouldn't allow us to play in most of the yard. So when we would go to Aunt Edie's (yes, I know it was Uncle Woody's place too but I always called it "going to Aunt Edie's") it was amazing because we had full run of the whole yard.

Aunt Edie had a really dry wit and most of her joking around was lost on me as a kid. Kids look at most situations literally so I totally didn't understand most of what she said to me back then (unless she was telling me to stop doing whatever destructive thing I was doing. That shit I understood quickly. Never piss off a McAleavey). I'm really glad that later on I was smart enough to actually talk to not only her but all of my aunts and uncles and get them to talk about their stories. I wasn't quite smart enough yet or maybe I just didn't get enough time to actually talk to my own parents the way I was able to talk to Aunt Edie and other members of my family. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to listen to her and get to understand that she really was a smart and funny woman who raised her family and dealt with what life threw at her with a determination and will that I think is pretty rare.

I poke fun at my family but in the end, they are a great bunch of people. Don't get me wrong, they're all completely batty but I think that's a good thing. If they weren't the mixed bag of nuts that they are it would be really boring at reunions. When we all get together (like we just did this past summer to celebrate Aunt Edie's 75th birthday) I think what shines through is that we all understand that we're in this together. We can lean on each other and look to each other for support during hard times with the knowledge that the help will be there. My family hasn't been the best at communication over the years but I think we're improving. The torch has been passed from our parent's generation onto us and although we've had some missteps I think we're on track. Aunt Edie would be proud.