What a rare story of love!
Aunt Jane sounds like she was battling herself and was forced either to toil the land in exchange for a bit of inner peace or let her mouth chase it downhill. I am sure her inability to express the darkest parts of herself is among the reasons she held on to her temper as it validated whatever she felt.
I might be wrong though.
Isn't gardening something amazing though? It helped keep the both of you together as you fell in love with what probably anchored her spirit to this realm. I may have had a problem with living so close to a lake, eating okras, or her thunderous anger but I would have certainly enjoyed watching her when her reflexes relaxed and the art of nurturing both the soil and the produce took over her.
Thank you for the tag 🔆
You can't help but speak with beauty, can you?
She taught all of us a lot: a lot of songs, a lot about nature, a lot about water sports, and a lot about love. Many of us did not learn her lessons well though. She became a laughing stock eventually. Several in the family were horrible to her, even though she was the most loyal person in our lives. Lots of battles between my parents and her. My mother and she grew up on the lake property, both motherless and/or abandoned.
You spoil me with compliments.
It is interesting how the ones who lean into being themselves are the ones society judges harshly the most. I am glad she left you a bit of her wealth.
She left us all of her "wealth." It wasn't much, but she was frugal, and she had land on a lake. I am so grateful she was my aunt.
I love your Aunt Jane and the way you celebrate all that was good in her, even while acknowledging she was difficult, hot-tempered, prone to bouts of depression, reviled by others - but not you! - for you, the goodness in her was unmissable, though everyone else seemed to miss it. Not see it. Not love this woman unconditionally.
You really show us how we can spend time with a dreaded family member, the "toxic" aunt in today's lingo, and how you learned so much from her and internalized so many good memories of that home on the lake. And that aunt who opened her doors to so many nieces and nephews and siblings. How sad that became a "laughing stock" - she, "the most loyal" person in your lives.
Now I'll be calling upon the soul of Aunt Jane when I set off on my lonely meadow walks.
Walk with me - join me - I invite whatever kind spirits may be capable of hearing me.
Bruni (@wonderwop) was a cradle Catholic, so I have fewer qualms about inviting him into my daily meditations (i.e., the Rosary. I know. I know. Don't laugh. One mantra is as good as another, right?)
Your aunt and your mother grew up "motherless and/or abandoned" - well, here's another one to unpack! If you've already blogged about it, please send links. :)
Love these stories of Lake Owasco and your vivid portraits of family. Thank you. You're brightened many a dark day with these images from your rich and colorful childhood.
My mother's mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father sent her and her older brother to live at the lake with their maternal grandmother, who grossly favored the brother (he has corroborated this). Jane had already been abandoned by both her parents and left to live there, so they both were essentially raised (my mother until she was 12, when shewent to live with her father and step mother) by a grandmother who was quite unkind. My mother was very loving, with her flaws of course, so I like to think that her birth mother gave her some loving for those first 18 months.
Uncle Bruni!