The day my aunt died, I was not surprised. Her cancer had made standing up an enormous feat and saying hi an incredible accomplishment. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I stared into her black and white eyes alongside the words of her obituary. In the next room my dad’s crying prevailed louder than the Modern Family episode I was watching. I stabbed my fork into my dinner, angry for whatever reason, but not sure why. My parents were out the door and down the Saw Mill within the hour, leaving me to tend to my slowly dying black lab. I was sad, yet unaware of it at the moment.
Unsure of what to do with myself, I began to wander. Like Goldilocks, I made sure to test out the already familiar couches within my house. I began to find myself coming in and out of the kitchen more than once; my eyes fixating on the cold granite where the newspaper stood under the spotlight. Though less than an eighth of a page, my aunt’s face caught my attention from across the room. I re-read the words on the page attempting to match them up with memories I assumed I had forgotten. However, the reality was that there were none of those memories saved in the back of my head.
“MINTON—Katherine, who brought literacy and the spoken word to millions of New Yorkers and people across the country, died September 21 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.”
As the director of literary programs at Symphony Space for almost thirty years, my aunt produced Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story where she picked out celebrated authors and actors and asked them to perform well-known short stories. Her obsession with words and stories is something I believe she received from my Grandma Lynn. I thought it was somewhat ironic that my aunt, who brought stories and thousands of words into the homes of millions of people, died without having the chance to formulate her own. Her speech, sparse and almost nonexistent, became something of a phenomenon. My mom frequently took it upon herself to shut off the sister-in-law switch and put on the speech pathologist switch. Assessing her diets at Thanksgiving dinner and other family events became simply part of the routine.
***
When my neighbor’s granddaughter was born, I was running out of my mom’s car to catch a train. She shouted out the window, “Evy had her baby!!” Evy was practically an aunt to me. I felt conflicted--should I just miss my train and head to the hospital? My mom assured me I would be able to see the baby tomorrow. The next day my brother and I made our way to the hospital and met Layla for the first time. Not knowing how to hold a baby, I soon became the laughing stock of the room. I was transfixed by the same blue eyes and and unmarked pale skin that we shared as I struggled to fit her in my arms.
Days during that summer were mostly spent sitting on a couch staring at the baby. “Can you say Phil? How about Uncle Phil?” I repeated these questions over and over again hoping that for some reason my name would be her first word. Around the time my aunt become sick, the visits were less frequent. I stressed about whether I should go with my parents to see my aunt or walk next door to see a baby who had no blood relation to me whatsoever. The long list of pros and cons of both were too much for me to follow and go over every time. Frustrated and confused, I almost always chose not to go with my parents.
When Layla said her first word, it was as if the whole world had stopped. With Layla and my aunt, my mom continued trying to pull full sentences out of a person who could only say hi. “Can you say what this is?” my mom said childishly as she pointed to a picture of a dog. Questions like these became constant no matter whom I was visiting. Once it became September and I began to enter the thick of junior year, the visits slowed down. It became increasingly hard to keep track of who said what minuscule word and when. Layla continued to have good days and was growing up, while my aunt seemed to reach a plateau of simply saying hi as an adult.
***
At her memorial service, an awkward teenage boy stood up on stage and proceeded to explain how my aunt, a stranger to him at first, had changed his life. I sat two rows back, sandwiched between an already depressed brother and an extremely emotional sister whose mascara ran faster than her hands could find a packet of Kleenex. I looked at her and then back to the young man on stage. I, too, felt sadness yet hadn’t resorted to crying and would never. Here this guy was, five feet up on a stage, so passionate about my aunt that he would spit every so often, and I couldn’t even cry. Pretty pathetic I thought. One after another, people went up on stage talking about the jokes my aunt used to crack or how she would talk about books. I wondered what my speech would look like if I were up on stage. “My aunt was extremely talented, or at least that is what my father tells me,” is probably what I would want to say, but not have the courage.
She was an avid walker, too, navigating through Central Park at least once a day. As my Grandma Lynn’s new husband lost his memory due to dementia, my aunt’s place as “walking partner” had been solidified. I can picture her in my mind in her denim jeans, a black shirt, and the ever so classic sun wicker hat. Her long strides were the first thing taken away from her. I used to joke to myself that she walked into the hospital with two legs and out with three, including her cane. I know it sounds morbid but there’s usually always some kind of silver lining even if it’s made up.
Getting her up to walk become an incredible hassle. In order to distance myself from the situation, I made sure to stay seated across the room on a couch. I looked on. Head shaven and hunched over, my aunt was pulled from the table by both of her arms by my uncle and mom. The rest of my family began to shout at them explaining what they were doing wrong. Voices and tensions reached a high as my aunt’s demeanor remained constant. She couldn’t walk alone and was clearly exhausted.
***
Layla’s first steps came at a somewhat opportune moment. Her grandma, my neighbor, had been hospitalized due to kidney problems that were now obviously more of a problem than my whole family had realized. Images of the people I loved in hospital gowns instead of dresses and oxygen tubes instead of necklaces plagued my mind. I tried to shut out and still continue to attempt to shut out these final images. With each step she took, Layla grounded us. For the first time in a while something normal was happening. She squirmed at the touch of whoever attempted to grab her arms, and at the age of not even one she was already taking charge. With my neighbor’s death came the affirmation that 2016 was the worst year in a long time. At her memorial service, Layla could be seen walking or crawling around under tables and in between legs. It brought smiles to pretty much everyone there and was something that everyone could be happy about.
I quickly learned that whenever she was over at my house, I was the one in for a workout. My dog, who is the least friendly black lab I know, would cower under the table as soon as unbalanced baby feet began to make their way throughout my house. Conversations about my aunt became Sunday dinner topics. Chasing Layla around and helping her learn how to walk better was more important to me than hearing how much chemo my aunt was having and how little it was working.
***
The last memory I have of my aunt is her soft smile squeezed in between her steroid- filled cheeks. In that moment I yearned for something more. I wanted to reach out and grab her head and just scream. She looked so happy and content as if she had just read a good book. Her eyes, however, were darker than normal and lifeless. My aunt was an incredible person who understood the power of words and stories. In the past year and a half I had gotten to know her better than I had in my entire life. Famous authors spoke so highly of her at her memorial service — how she would leave them books to read and how one of them actually still had the book and was holding on to it. For some reason I think about my aunt more than I ever used to. I open a book, pass Symphony Space or simply look at my father and I’m instantly reminded of all the things she cherished. I stare at a blank page or a half-completed essay and pray to a god that she didn’t even believe in asking her to help me formulate words, words, words….