Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Thursday, October 23, 2014

Aunt Emily

Teacher of all things important.
Care-taker extraordinaire.
Sometimes you think you know someone.
But you really don't . . .
My Dad is the youngest of eleven children.
Nine boys.
And two girls.
The youngest girl, my Aunt Mary, was a short, round, happy lady with numerous children and even more numerous grandchildren.
More about her in another post . . .
His other sister, Emily, was an entirely different person.
Emily was the eldest child in the family.
She was a tall, spare, maiden lady.
Erect and correct.
And I was terrified of her.
Emily had served a mission for her church in her early twenties.
Briefly - and tragically - entertained the thought of marriage.
And lived the rest of her life teaching home economics and helping her mother care for the family home.
She was the professed cleaner to my Grandmother's cooking.
The maker of everything tidy.
The bestow-er of a set of sewing scissors to every niece who reached grade nine.
And the dragon in the den at the top of the stairs.
A note . . .
Aunt Emily's office was the first room to the left as one went up the stairs of the family home.
It was a lovely place. Neat and organized.
With a little window/door that opened out onto the roof/sundeck of the garage.
Us kids loved to sneak into that room and let ourselves out onto that deck.
But only when Aunt Emily wasn't about.
Back to my story . . .
Throughout my childhood, I loved visiting Grandma Stringam's home with my parents.
But walked softly around Aunt Emily.
When I was eighteen, all of that changed.
I had moved to the city to attend college.
Journalism.
Go figure.
For four months, I stayed with my Grandma and Aunt Emily.
At first, though I'm sure they tried to make me feel welcome, I spent very little time in their home.
Choosing, instead to study at the college or at a friend's and returning only at bedtime.
Then I got sick.
Really, really sick.
Strep throat.
Ugh.
One evening, after we had put the paper to bed (a newspaper term for sending everything to the press and washing our hands of all responsibility), I collapsed.
My friends carried me, quite literally, to my grandmother's home and to my little bed on the second floor.
I remember very little of it.
There, safely ensconced, I lost all consciousness for several days.
Someone took care of me.
Gave me liquids.
Fed me.
Cleaned up after me.
Helped me to the bathroom.
Hauled me to the hospital for a shot in the backside.
I do remember that . . .
And generally took excellent care of me.
As I slowly became more cognisant, I realized that the person who had been so patiently and lovingly nursing me was my scary Aunt Emily.
One afternoon, I opened my eyes and felt . . . almost human.
Aunt Emily appeared beside my bed.
“Feeling better?”
I nodded uncertainly.
“Oh, I'm so glad! I'm going to the store to get you something special. What would you like?”
And it was then that I realized that eighteen years had gone by without me knowing my special aunt at all.
Eighteen years of misunderstanding and unwarranted fear.
Wasted years.
I wasted no more.
In the following weeks and months, we became friends.
Aunt Emily died at the age of 85 from complications following surgery.
We were given twenty five years of friendship.
I will always be grateful.

19 comments:

  1. Beautiful. I love the sewing scissors anecdote and the reminder that the people around us have depths we can't even imagine. But should.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly! And we never know . . . until something smacks us!

      Delete
  2. That's lovely, Diane. It's amazing what we find when we look past the surface sometimes!

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  3. What a wonderful story, Diane. I'm glad you had those twenty-five years. Your label says it all.

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  4. This made me cry - what a beautiful story about Aunt Emily. I had an older cousin similar to her - it was only when I grew up and learned her story that I was able to connect with the person she was underneath.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So many folks aren't what they seem...

    ReplyDelete
  6. This one was just so sweet. In fact I needed some Kleenex.
    Thanks for sharing this precious experience and blessings for you~

    ReplyDelete
  7. Getting strep throat (I have no idea what that is) seems a drastic way of getting to know your Aunt Emily. God works in mysterious ways for sure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so glad you don't know what strep throat is. It's . . . icky.
      Yep. Drastic and wonderful!

      Delete
    2. I googled it. Out here we call it tonsillitis and I had it many times as a child, grew out of it for a while then it came back briefly when I was in high school and again just after my wedding. Then I had my tonsils out. My younger daughter had it repeatedly until I arranged to have her tonsils out at age 11.

      Delete
  8. Oh, Diane! This is beautiful! Man, I've missed your wonderful writing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is such a beautiful story, it just reinforces the old adage "Don't judge a book by it's cover"!

    ReplyDelete

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