My Great-Aunt Claire

Aunt Claire & Uncle Buddy

I have no idea why, but these last several days, my mind has turned frequently to memories of Aunt Claire. I find myself missing her so much. I wish that i could once again be a little girl, and climb up into her lap and tell her all the problems of my small little world. And that she would hug me tight tell me not to worry, then suggest some tidbit of wisdom that would snap everything into perspective and then everything would indeed be all right. And if it wasn't, well, suddenly her crossword puzzle would become too difficult for her and only i would be able to help.

My Great-Aunt Claire was many things to me. She was my grandmother's unmarried sister, my father's aunt, my summertime house guest, my playmate, my enthusiastic audience, my source of infinate wisdom, and role model for how i wanted to live my life.

To look at her, she would make a doctor, fashionista, and hair stylist all cringe. Her hair was dark brown, almost black (and later grey) and she never dyed it. She kept it cropped boyishly close. She wore thick 80s glasses that gave her bug eyes. She was very overweight, so she wore muumuus usually in garish colors like orange, fuchsia, and brown. Beneath them, she wore knee high nylons to hide her varicose veins and what i can only describe as grandma shoes. Her arms had arm fat hanging from them almost 10 inches long and she never work makeup. She was no delicate flower. Not with her brisk and no nonsense attitude.

G-Aunt Claire, Grandma Anne, Aunt Eileen, Uncle Paul

But I loved her fiercely and i would never change a single hair on her head. If i had eons to sit here and tell you about her, i could never come close to truly describing the woman who shaped my growing years in ways that i can't even pick apart until i catch someone staring at me when i'm ranting in "Aunt-Claire-ian" terms. Her enthusiasm for life always amazed me.

Behind those thick glasses were mischievous and sparkling with a hundred unspoken jokes. Her arm blubber was an endless source of entertainment and she never ever felt shamed about it. She wore the muumuus because they were exceedingly comfortable, not giving a damn about fashion. I learned how to count because she would have me count out her pills in her weekly pill reminder case. She made up words collected from Italian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, and Tarzan (no i'm not kidding, she loved Tarzan's language of the beasts and used several phrases on us children) She knew how to improvise just about everything from card game rules, which spontaneously changed mid-game, to the left hand while playing piano.

Aunt Claire, my brother Michael, Grandma, Me, Dad, Mom,
Grandma T and my brother Johnny

And she would sing. Off key, tuneless, and able to be heard through the whole house. That's how i knew everything was right in the world, when Aunt Claire was singing or shuffling her feet in a silly little dance.

When everything was not all right, the whole neighborhood heard about it. Her and my grandmother would get into screaming matches over who had more cookies at tea time or if Perry Mason or Columbo was a better show, which generally ended up with them screaming at each other in Ukrainian about fifty or more past arguments. But so help you if you jumped into the argument, they would both turn on you like savage dogs, defending the other for the very thing they had been yelling about seconds before.

She died just before i graduated, on May 21, 2005 at 84 years old. I very badly wanted to go but with school coming to a close and the trip to the other side of the continent, we held our own memorial at home in the form of an UNO card game marathon proclaiming PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS, and YELLOW CANARIES and TAKE 2 when dropping a regular 2 card and the infamous ACCORDING TO HOY-LEE proclamations. It was my aunts favorite game even though she would cheat against us children. So many of my memories revolve around a deck of well worn Uno cards.

Uncle nick, Michael, Random person,
Me, Margaret, Johnny, Noreen,
and Aunt Claire, clearly plotting some uno scheme

I found recently that my upper arms are starting to develop a little droop when i hold them up. I began to freak out. I loved my aunt and admire every detail about her, including her complete disregard for mainstream beauty. But at 25, i'm not ready to have her arms, I hate dresses in general, i love my long hair, and well, just...damnit i'm to young to have blubber arms!

Part of me has always wanted to be like her. Until Boyfriend Jon came along, it wasn't entirely unexpected (by myself and my family) that i would become the unmarried caregiver in this generation of our family since it seems there's always one or two. I wanted to be the one whom all the kids gathered, so i could pass on my unconventional wisdom that comes from not being a typical woman. To show them that its not really necessary to live according to main stream, to have the latest media and toys to entertain yourself, and mostly that life is a wondrous thing and we should enjoy it.

It's my philosophy in life even now; not conforming, doesn't necessarily mean you can't be happy doing it. I wish now that i had asked my aunt why she never married. There's so many things i wish i could talk with her about. I regret that in the last few years of her life, she was barely even a shadow of the incredible dynamic woman i grew up with. Dementia saw to that. And that even as a teenager, i didn't make time to talk with her on the phone. Mostly i regret that my future children will never know her.

Some day, the Uno cards will come out, and i'll teach them about purple people eaters, Hoy-Lee, dig a little deeper, let me call you sweetheart, scosheeboshee and Ungawa Nichcha (most of those are aunt clarian terms that still float around our family). Who knows what's in the cards for me. I could still turn out to be very much like her.

But the blubber arms have to go.