Aunt Linda

Today we were on our way to eat supper with Ma and Poppy and then go see Great Grandpa Ritz. It struck me that in all the times we have gone to see him, we haven't stopped by to see my Aunt Linda, their Great Aunt Linda. She's practically right next door. So, we stopped by to see her. Even though they couldn't physically see her, they did get to meet her for the first time. I feel like dirt that it's taken me so long to take them there. I guess I was worried about how they would react to a cemetery, but they took it in stride as usual. They handle things so much better than we think they can. They kept asking what she used to look like. They wanted all the details. That made my heart smile.
I told them all about what she looked like, but now I want to tell them who she was, at least to me. She has been gone for just over 13 years now, but it all seems like just yesterday...

She was my Den Mother in Cub Scouts. I thought she was the coolest for doing that. Her son, my cousin, Mamar (Art now) was in our little den. Along with my buddies Jimmy and GW and some other friends from school. At the time they lived right behind our school. I remember playing on the playground and seeing her house and getting excited to go over there for a den meeting. She always made everything so fun and exciting. We would all cram into the tiny living room and she'd read to us from the cub scout manual. Now, if you've ever read one of those things, it can be pretty boring reading material, but she made it all sound really interesting. She had a way of talking to us, not down to us that really connected with our little scout hearts and minds.

One time, there was some trouble over at Aunt Linda's house. I'm not gonna try and get into the details, because I don't really know them all. Suffice it to say she was scared about someone breaking in or something like that and had armed herself to the teeth. I remember hearing that she had the guns loaded and ready to rock and thinking, "Wow, she is one tough Momma." She really was the mother wolf, protecting her cubs. Teeth bared, ready for anything, like in our books. Just awesome.

She cooked one thing really well, that I can remember...spaghetti. Well, actually she cooked spaghetti sauce really well. It was thick, meaty, a little sweet and 100% awesome. However, she served it over spaghetti that she never, and I mean never drained all the way. You'd always have a little water at the bottom of your plate. Still though, it was the best. I can still taste it. I still miss it.

After they moved out here, me and Mamar got to play on the same baseball team. She loved watching us play. I know Mamar loved seeing her there for the games. Win or lose, she was there. Until she couldn't be.

We had a tournament in San Diego one year. All the guys were over the moon excited for the trip and the games. Traveling to play ball is just awesome. We all rode over in huge vans and stayed in a pretty nice hotel. Aunt Linda couldn't make the trip for whatever reason. I believe it was the first night we were there...that a phone call came. She'd had a seizure while driving and had a minor accident. No one was hurt, but there was no word yet on why she had the seizure. I remember watching my cousin as he got the news. I could see his heart breaking. Not because the tournament was over for him, but because he couldn't be there right then to help her. I felt sick to my stomach. The kind of sick feeling you get when you are helpless to do anything to make a situation any better. For a while there was no news, so while my cousin flew home to be with his mother, we played baseball. The whole time though, there was an empty feeling hanging over me. I wanted to be home, not playing ball.

Not long after we got home, we got the news. Cancer. A brain tumor. I remember being shocked, but not really worried. This was my Aunt Linda. She was too tough to be really sick. That just wasn't the case though. She was sick and there wasn't a damn thing anyone in our family could do about it. It was horribly aggressive and she got bad news after bad news after bad news. She kept so positive though. When everyone was down, she was up. She wasn't about to give up. She was the fightingest woman you ever saw.

At one point she had a fund raising event at a local Cajun restaurant to pay for a new treatment she wanted to try. A lot of people showed up and I remember being really happy and relaxed the whole night. She was the star that evening. Everyone that came in got hugs and thanks and got to spend a lot of happy time with her. She must have smiled the whole night. I was so happy for her. Happy for the whole family. At one point she came up and knelt beside me. She put her head to mine and said, "I'm going to beat this thing. I'm going to see you playing pro-ball one day." I remember staring into her eyes and she was as serious as I'd ever seen her. It wasn't just lip-service, she believed it. We both cried, but they were tears of joy. Hopeful tears I guess you could say. Of all the moments in my life that have rocked me to my core, that one is right at the top.

Not very long after that, after all the treatments ran their course, she passed. When I heard she was gone I couldn't face the pain. Momma came into the living room and asked me if I wanted to go up to hospice with my sisters and say goodbye, but Aunt Linda was already gone and I couldn't deal with that. I curled up on the couch and cried so hard I thought I would pass out. By that point everyone knew it was coming, nevertheless I was completely unprepared. She was just 39 years old. I was just 17.

I was asked to be a pall bearer at her funeral, one of the greatest honors of my life. To deal with the over whelming grief of that day I turned to the greatest comedian in our family, Uncle Vaughn. We shared funny stories about her, jokes she had told, and more than once shared the morbid joke of introducing ourselves to each other as Paul. Paul Bearer. That may sound crass, but at the time we were barely hanging on by a thread. Heck, she would have laughed the loudest at jokes like that.

Her ceremony at church was absolutely beautiful. The Priest, Father Jack, made such an impression on me that years later Cindy and I would ask him to preside over our wedding. He shared such wonderful thoughts about her life and talked about extraordinary things she'd done that none of us had ever heard of. She was a beautiful person and deserved nothing less than a beautiful day.

It wasn't until we walked out of the church that I remember seeing just how many people were there. So many people had turned out. I was standing away from everybody, trying to take it all in quietly, while we waited to drive to the cemetery. I was keeping my composure up pretty well. Trying to be the tough guy. Then, two friends from my baseball team walked up with tears in their eyes and I broke. Like glass dropped on cement. Two guys who before I had never had a deeper conversation with than, "Dude, if you were on a stranded island, what girl would be there with you and why?" There we were though. Standing in front of a church in South Scottsdale, crying our eyes out.

Her burial was again, a beautiful moment. The saddest moment in my entire life, but still beautiful. I stood beside Mamar, with my arm on his shoulder as he wept. We all took turns holding each other up with a pat on the back and a squeeze on the shoulder. When it was my turn to say goodbye, I walked up to her and tried to get out, "I love you Aunt Linda", but I'm not sure it came out clearly.

Throughout that next year, I would go see her all the time. I'd sit down and just talk to her. Baseball hadn't seemed so important anymore, and I let it fall away from me. I could have done the brave thing and given it my best shot, but I wasn't brave. I was beaten. Instead of letting her words inspire me to greater things, I tried my best to forget them. I was afraid of failing, of letting her down. So I took the cowards way out and didn't try. I told no one else about how I felt, just her.

As the years passed, I started going less and less until I just stopped going at all. It was just easier not to go, not to think about that pain. I'm a grown man now, and a Father to two awesome young men and it's time to show them the right way to handle pain.

I promise you Aunt Linda, I will make it out to see you on a regular basis. I miss our talks, and even though I don't have anymore teenage angst to vent, I do have some things we could talk about. And, I know I'm a little old to make it in pro-ball, but I'm gonna give you a good show this winter in some adult league action. I've been away from it long enough, and I owe you at least a good laugh.

I love you Aunt Linda. See you soon.