Channeling Pat

Lately, when I look in the mirror, I see my aunt staring back at me.

My mom's older sister. I saw her a few times a year while I was growing up. She called me Babe.  She colored her hair and dressed iconically. Like my mom, she grew up poor and would eventually marry her childhood school sweetheart, who eventually became a doctor.

Like me, a bounder.

She encouraged my mom to allow me to take a scholarship to go to a private high school, and even today, mom calls me "elite", as if it were an insult, or as if it were meant to be. And that route allowed me to grow to adulthood, meet my soulmate, and live a life. Which is why, I guess, I am pretty good at creating opportunities that originally didn't exist in other people's schemes. I  grew up outside, and as an outsider, I see things differently. I spent a lot of time looking for validation in the wrong places, and I lived long enough to see that, and correct it.

When I talk to my own kids, I sometimes hear my mom, but lately I hear a lot of my aunt, too. She envied me my straight nose. Her commentary was peppered with vulgarities, and I wonder now if she felt like she could let her hair down with my mom and her family.   She always appeared to be 'on.'

At least when I saw her, which wasn't that often.

But I look in the mirror these days, and with my halo of chestnut, copper and silver wild and wavy hair, I could be her. And when I talk, I hear her.

She died 7 years ago. Her family didn't tell my family she died, and now no one is talking to one another. I showed up at her husband's sister's funeral and shocked him and four of my cousins who were in attendance. I didn't get to her funeral, so I got a do over. I wish I understood why her family excluded us. I wish I understood what our perceived fault was.

I wish someone would explain what happened.