The family had gathered from all over the continent. Some from Maryland. Others from New York and Florida. We had travelled from Toronto to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where my mother’s “baby brother” George was getting married to his fiancée Mary. But I had a problem.
“The battery in my camera’s dead,” I moaned. “And I want to take pictures of the wedding tomorrow.”
Since we were all foreigners to Allentown, except Mary, my future aunt, none of us knew where to buy replacement batteries except for her.
“I can help,” Mary said. Remember, this is the eve of her wedding to the family’s favourite uncle. So, no doubt, she had a million things on her mind. Nevertheless, Mary dropped everything to drive me to the store to buy the right size of batteries for my camera. Easier said than done. One store was closed. The next didn’t carry that size. We actually drove to the next town down the highway, Bethlehem, before finding a place open and selling the right size of batteries.
Next Monday is International Women’s Day, and I’ll bet nobody’s ever written a column paying tribute to their aunts. I think it’s about time. I’m fortunate to have known and loved four aunts – one my mother’s sister, one my father’s sister, one my father’s sister-in-law, and Mary who helped me find batteries for my camera on the Saturday night in Allentown before marrying my Uncle George the next day, 56 years ago this week.
My father’s sister, Irene, was also my godmother, which meant she attended my christening in 1949, and fulfilled all other legal obligations of godmothers. But Aunt Irene was a character. She and my dad grew up in New York City, and since she spent much of her life there, she maintained that unique New York accent all her life. She always kidded us Canadians about the way we said “about.”
“Where did you learn to say aboot that way?” she’d ask.
To which I always responded, “Aunt Irene, you tawk funny.”
Still, Aunt Irene and I spoke the same language on a lot of things. We both insisted that bread had to be served with every meal. (It might have had something to do with the fact that her husband, my Uncle Jimmy, was a lifelong baker). And when absolutely nobody could teach me how to blow bubbles with bubble gum, Aunt Irene could. That’s really important to a kid.
Aunt Fanny, my dad’s brother’s wife, was one of the greatest travellers of her generation. Another lifelong New Yorker, she raised five daughters. And even though her husband, Uncle Angelo, was a workaholic, whenever the summer arrived, whether he was able to go or not, Fanny felt it important that their girls see the world.
Or at least that part of the world reachable by station wagon. They visited us in Ontario several times. More than that, Fanny made sure her girls visited every state of the mainland U.S.A., every province in Canada, and Mexico. All via station wagon! That car ought to be in the Smithsonian, if only for the miles it travelled.
I worked alongside my Aunt Virginia, my mother’s older sister. The summer I turned 16, I worked in their family-owned-and-operated restaurant in Maryland. Not a huge surprise, with a Greek background, that I should serve a stint as a busboy at the Double T Diner, just off the Baltimore Beltway. I learned a lot that summer (among other things that I should never choose the food and hospitality business as a career). But Aunt Virginia taught me the Cardinal Rule of service and retail.
“The customer is always right,” she told me.
“Even when their kids smash the ketchup bottle on the floor?”
“Even then,” she said.
More than Cardinal Rules of hospitality, at the core of Aunt Virginia was the Golden Rule. Do unto others. Most of all, she adored being part of and serving her family. She always found time to support, console, lift up and celebrate each of us. In 2008, she came from the U.S. to attend our daughter’s wedding. She beamed throughout a perfect ceremony at the museum grounds. She danced with and hugged every one of us during reception at the Music Hall that night.
None of us expected she would have a heart attack and die later that same night. But she left us a poem on a card she’d planned to read to us the next day at a backyard party. Virginia offered a personal thought spelled out for each of the letters in its title, “A LOVING FAMILY.” “A” was for agape, the Greek word for “love,” “I” for ideals held high, and “L” for love given unconditionally.
A priceless gift from the aunts (and the other women) in my life.