ML

My aunt died last night. I Facebooked the fact, and then an hour later deleted it. What was I thinking?

I was sad when I heard the news and felt like crying for a brief time. Never really did, though. There are a lot of blocks to emotional outlet built into the human machine. Maybe later, when I see those grieving who were closer to her.

She was the only sibling among my parents, my only aunt. Her husband was my only uncle. Eighty years old. Failing health, short string of strokes. Not a surprise. More of a relief as is usually the case at this stage.

She only moved away from home into assisted living a few weeks ago. I visited her there once, a couple weeks ago, and she was fairly alert, her usual somewhat sardonic self. I couldn't tell if she was happy to be there or not, I mean if she really understood the implications, or was just putting up with it, or what.

I think underneath the surface where she didn't need to talk about it, she knew it was her final stop before going on to be with Art again.

They had such a love affair. The emotion wells more when I think of that than anything.

I told office people I am going for the afternoon to go be with family. But my mother has already gone back home after meeting with her sister's daughters, and mostly they just have to pack up their mother's room and deal with the funeral home and such, and I will pretty much be a fifth wheel. I'll go anyway to show solidarity, give hugs, snag a couple hours' open road time out of the office ...

Now both gone, Art and ML were the married couple who proved the exception: They stayed together. Oftentimes I wanted to drill into their heads and find out how they did it, but there was never a chance for that. Of everyone in their generation and the next one who got married, they are the only ones who stayed married -- them, and my wife and I. And though we've surpassed twenty one years I have no sense of how people stay married and am hungry for insight into how they do it.

(And my brother. Let us not bow to convention. Though they have been denied recognition of their marital status, S and A's relationship is outlasting us all. I'm only being honest is saying I am still getting used to taking such a simply conventional view. And so now I am shocked to realize that the two children of The Divorce are in fact not following the pattern.)

They met on a blind date, perhaps in San Francisco, and at some point partied on the Eureka where Art had a job as night watchman. Prior to that, shortly after graduation from Cal in ~1950, she had a mysterious government job in Trieste when the Cold war was less about missiles and concrete barriers and more about watchfulness and human interactions. Over the years she built a reputation as a somewhat prickly person, hard-headed in business, unlikeable to some, tactless to others; but somehow I never saw that side of her. I liked her directness and her matter-of-fact refusal to see the sunny side of life and the dark humor that came out, sometimes in such a way I felt I was the only one who got it. So for that and for being family, I'll miss her. My mother has lost her little sister, and will miss her much, much more.

Mary Louise (Wiggins) Taber 1929 - 2009.