Endings, Beginnings And The Garden In Between

I’d tell you that my husband’s aunt died a few weeks ago – but “husband’s aunt” just doesn’t cut it. In fact – it barely scratches the surface. Long before I met my husband, I met his aunt. She and I embarked on an interesting and somewhat unconventional relationship that started off one way and ended another and in between, I just so happened to marry her nephew.

The story of our friendship is living proof that no one has any real idea of who will earn a place of importance within their life.  And when you happen to be a child – trudging back and forth to school each day – you barely understand the concept of the people that will come and go in the life you have yet to lead. In elementary school, friends are pretty much a given – they are kids in your class, kids that live around the corner from you, kids of your parents’ friends – not a neighbourhood mom who happens to walk her five-year-old daughter along the same path as you.

But sometimes they are.

I first met Pat Bassman when I was in elementary school – it was bound to happen considering she only lived one street over from my childhood home in Windsor, her young daughter Sarah and I attended the same school (although five grades apart) and Pat prided herself on knowing everyone in the neighbourhood. While I am hard-pressed to recall our specific introduction – I have hazy memories of a woman with a short and stylish haircut, wearing a pastel polo t-shirt. Somewhere, somehow – our paths crossed. Of course back then – I knew her as Mrs. Bassman.

Later on, as I began a brief albeit illustrious career as neighbourhood babysitter, we met up with each other once again. Now in junior high, I was earning some pocket money by minding a little girl a few streets over. And my charge happened to be close friends with Sarah – Mrs. Bassman’s little girl. As a result, I would sometimes find myself supervising the girls during their play dates and even babysitting Sarah on a couple of occasions. It was at this point in time that Mrs. Bassman mentioned to me that her nephew from out of town who was about my age would be visiting and that I should make a point of coming by with the little girl I was watching in order to meet him. Now whether or not you have ever been a gawky teenage girl yourself, I’m sure you can appreciate this scenario and all the awkwardness it would most certainly entail. But of course it would be deemed rude not to accept the invitation, so off we went.

And just as I anticipated, the visit was a tense 45 minutes of sitting out back by a pool, making stilted conversation with a pimple-faced, gap-toothed boy my age while a few grown-ups hovered within earshot and several younger girls giggled nearby. I will say this though – Mrs. Bassman’s nephew was friendly enough and actually very nice considering he was a boy my age. And that was the last I saw of this boy again until I was walking down the aisle toward him 12 years later.

Okay – I may  have skimmed over some pertinent details about running into him again at university; reminding him who I was; and his asking for my phone number.

During our university days, Mrs. Bassman (now Pat) was over the moon at the fact that it was thanks to her and her remarkable matchmaking skills that her nephew and I had rekindled something she had sparked about a decade earlier. As I grew closer to this boyfriend as well as his family, I was witness to Pat’s boundless generosity. She (as well as her husband Vince) opened their home to their nephew as he pursued his degree. And by default, opened their home to all of his friends – some of them still look back on this time with fond nostalgia. Their home was and always is open to family and friends – a place to stop by for a chat, to partake in a game of cards, to enjoy a meal – there didn’t have to be an invitation.

Our 1998 engagement solidified a relationship that began as child and neighbourhood mom; then tween babysitter and casual employer to niece and aunt-in-law. I started getting to know Pat on more equal footing. Now we were two adults as opposed to child and adult. She could let her guard down around me and vice versa.

With all the craziness of organizing a wedding, finishing up my Master’s, working part-time and planning a move – I found myself taking refuge at Pat’s house once in a while. She was a fan of the show Ally McBeal and I could reasonably tolerate it so once a week, I’d schlep the one block over to her place, join her on the couch and together we’d watch. It was a weekly comfort that I looked forward to and would miss once I moved away.

Now with real, full-time work and married life upon me, my trips back to Windsor grew sporadic but still every visit home included at least one visit to Aunt Pat. I’d rarely phone ahead as Aunt Pat welcomed the drop-in – and if she was busy and didn’t have time for a visit then she’d let you know. If the weather was nice, I’d find her knees and elbow deep in her beautiful garden – she’d take a welcome break and the two of us would sit inside or outside, have a cold glass of something and catch up.

An avid gardener, Aunt Pat nurtured a stunning display of plants and flowers in her yard. I imagine she tackled gardening much like she did her life and the people she cared about. She painstakingly selected beautiful items to plant around her to provide her with comfort and beauty. She tended them but didn’t necessarily stifle – letting things get wild from time to time. She rolled with the punches and if the hostas were getting out of control, she’d yank them up at the drop of a hat or else shrug her shoulders and let them stand a while longer.

She was quick-witted and sharp-tongued and frankly, quite hilarious.

She wasn’t opposed to tossing around the eff word when it was warranted and according to Aunt Pat it was warranted quite regularly. At the same time, she had a dark and brooding side and could hold a grudge with a vice-tight grip which meant you wanted to remain on her good side. She could be impulsive – once after a lengthy conversation about an acquaintance who had pissed her off, she proceeded to send the poor sap a quite direct and biting email and copied me on it. Reading it over that night, I cringed in anticipation of the sh** storm this email was about to wreak. About an hour later, Aunt Pat sent me a follow-up telling me that the original email had bounced back. It turned out she had messed up the email address so it never ended up reaching the intended target of her wrath. By this time, she had calmed down – and having gotten everything off her chest by writing it in the first place, she was relieved the exchange had been aborted. “Someone’s looking out for me” she had stated.

This was the kind of woman she was. Frank and truthful, real and passionate, contrite and hilarious and fiercely protective and loyal. Her impulsiveness, moodiness and sometimes all-around crankiness were what I found most endearing about her. They were what made her refreshingly real. In terms of honesty – it was impossible to find a more stark and bare-bones opinion. If you had an awful and embarrassing haircut, you definitely didn’t turn to Aunt Pat to stroke your ego and offer frivolous words of comfort like “It looks fine”. Although she would definitely help you gain some perspective – “It’ll grow back”.

However, if what you were after was a direct and straightforward opinion on something that truly mattered to you – then she was yer guy.

Looking over almost two decades of email exchanges between the two of us is bittersweet. In them Aunt Pat talks of her knitting, her recipes, her family, her vacations and of course her beloved garden. When she became a grandmother in 2009, her emails reflected a renewed energy and spirit that she eagerly embraced. In this correspondence, she poured forth details about life with her two new reasons for living – Joshua and Siobhan. Still later and most recently, her messages detailed the results of her medical scans and biopsies, what the doctors had told her, how she was feeling and how she was handling it all. Despite covering a mixture of topics and being written in varied tones, all her messages share several things in common – they are well-written, hilarious and snarky – and very meaningful to me.

Aunt Pat was one of my biggest supporters – and she never shied away from telling me so. Oftentimes, she would send me a quick email to let me know that she had been re-reading some of my earlier articles or essays. She would always push me to continue and sometimes just blatantly ask me when I would be writing some new stuff she could get her hands on. I only wish Aunt Pat was here to read these words so she could do what she did best – critique and encourage – and very probably tell me to eff off.

Over the years, Aunt Pat often teased me about orchestrating my wedding for me when I was just 13. All joking aside, there is no arguing that she got the ball rolling that built up in momentum and resulted in where I am today. Sometimes, there’s just no way of knowing whose quiet (and sometimes loud) encouragement and sincere words will help nudge you down the path you are meant to lead. As a child, an idea like this is too immense and impossible to grasp – and even as an adult – it is only through hindsight that you can sometimes connect the dots.

In an ironically fitting exit that Aunt Pat and I could have dissected and laughed about in any other circumstance – she took her leave of us on Mother’s Day 2017. She was surrounded by a precious garden of her own construction – one that she had slowly and carefully cultivated throughout her years of marriage and friendship. This garden of family and friends sat by her side and provided her with their unwavering love and support through what Pat always loved best – good conversation, delicious food, some raucous laughter, and a few shed tears. Amidst it all, she simply slipped away.

But she’s not gone – not to me she isn’t. Not to a lot of people.

I wanted my first blog post to be about something near and dear to me – something I hold close in my heart and mind that I could share with everyone around me. And so it is – a love letter to a beloved neighbour-turned aunt-turned friend . . . from her heartbroken niece.