I have seven aunts - five living and two no longer with us. This is the first in a series that looks at the relationships, stories, and family myths that have formed around each of the aunts, with names changed.
Aunt Sarah, my father’s younger sister, is the youngest aunt. She was a strong presence in our childhood as she and my dad were very close. When we were children and young adults, she and her family lived across the road from my grandparents’ rural Michigan farm and our family and theirs spent a weekend evening together nearly every week. We looked forward to those times: once in the winter, we went snowmobiling at night on the land around their home; a lovely memory of flying into the cool dark. (This brings back memories of other childhood events at the farm across the road. Our lives are treasure troves of stories, aren’t they?)
When I was fourteen Aunt Sarah, who is left-handed as I am, taught me how to crochet, and then she showed me how to crochet a chevron afghan. I chose shades of blue - remember how popular that color combination was? Graduated blues created an almost palpable sense of calm and connection with mysteries of the universe. I lost momentum and interest before the afghan reached its intended length, but my parents used the resulting smaller throw for years.
As we got older, it became evident that Aunt Sarah was not always kind, and took offense easily. She and her husband had a pattern: intense friendship-building followed by alienation over an imagined slight. Our family was never the target of this behavior, but ironically, Aunt Sarah’s later actions broke her relationship with my father.
My paternal grandfather had two bachelor farmer brothers who lived in Northern Michigan. They never left the farmhouse where they were born, spending money only on new cars. They died wealthy men, and my father and aunt were the uncles’ heirs. There was a third sibling who received a token amount as well; I’ll write about her in another article.
My mother, sister, and I were only at the farm a few times, but my father and brother spent a lot of time there over the years, mainly for hunting and haying seasons. Some of my brother’s best memories were made there, and I’m sure my father’s were too. I wandered their land as a child and teenager, meeting their cattle and barn cats.
Betrayal
Aunt Sarah was also involved in the bachelor brothers’ lives, but not until their health was failing; she cared for each of them until they died.
Did Aunt Sarah take on that caretaker role out of a sense of family and love, or did she make herself indispensable to gain access to her uncles’ money? Maybe a little of both? All we know is that while she cared for that last living uncle, plans for distributions of funds changed and half a million dollars that my father had been expecting to inherit went, instead, to Aunt Sarah. It’s been implied that Aunt Sarah planted that seed, and I believe this to be true.
Dad still inherited quite a bit - enough to cover three years of memory care for my mother after his death, with substantial proceeds to each of us siblings after Mom’s merciful release. While I know he probably had grandiose dreams for that additional money, the true blow was more personal: he was stunned that his favorite sister, whom he had believed to be always in his corner, would betray him. The betrayal sent him into a deep depression that, as it turned out, would never leave him until the day he died about ten years later. My mother, who had never expressed more than minor annoyance with anyone, early on declared her everlasting hate for the woman who had betrayed her husband. She never saw or spoke to Aunt Sarah again.
Aunt Sarah has alienated others as well. Her own children avoid her. Currently she and her husband, along with a friend/caretaker, live in rural Northern Michigan, a place of spare beauty and isolation. Now in their early eighties, both have health problems. We aren’t estranged, although there isn’t much of a relationship.
But still.
Aunt Sarah was patient enough to show this awkward teenager how to crochet, and with that she gave me a gift that’s lasted a lifetime, although I put the hook down for almost fifty years.
Then twenty years later when I was suffering profound depression and anxiety, Aunt Sarah called me in tears as she offered me her heartfelt support and validated my pain. She was not faking the emotion that made it nearly impossible for her to speak, but still I understood when she explained that she, too, was crippled with anxiety after her children were born.
I have regrets of my own, and I have experienced the blessed gratitude and relief of being forgiven by loved ones whom I may have offended. Aunt Sarah deserves that too. She’s a flawed human like the rest of us, and specifically, she has taught me and comforted me.
So, I’m crocheting a small throw that I will send her with a letter telling her that I love her - because I do. If I can get some pleasure from the craft she taught me, I can share that pleasure with her and possibly give her some measure of peace. (As always, though, once that finished object leaves my hands, my expectations end. All I can do is give the gift.)
I feel a sense of urgency, now that I’ve decided to do this. After 25 years of knitting, crochet touches an ancient part of me that is connected with Aunt Sarah and other childhood memories.
So let’s get on with it.