This one's for you

Yesterday morning my favorite great aunt died. We were expecting it, since she'd been sick for a while. It upset me most to hear that she was so sick in the first place. She isn't even the oldest of her sisters. I wish it had been one of the other ones to go, just not her or my Oma (german for grandmother).

There were four sisters, and the other two never had more than a shallow surface conversation with me. My Tante Heidi (tante = aunt in german) was always the one who would come up and talk to anyone, especially the younger generation. I always appreciated that, because when we were visiting the relatives, alot of them just tried to pinpoint whose child I was, how old I was, if I had a boyfriend, and what I was doing in school. That's just how relatives are when they live in a different country. Or maybe they're just like that regardless.

Anyway, my Tante Heidi was always so funny and interesting; she once came up to me and asked if her necklace matched her dress too much. I told her it went well together. I really had no opinion, but her complete openess and random question jolted me into realizing that older people really can be interesting to talk to. I think I was 14 or so at the time.

The last time I saw her was the week we flew up to British Columbia for our cousin's wedding. We were at a lake with some relatives, and she chose me to be her companion. She liked to single people out to tell them secrets. She told me the story of how she & her sisters grew up, as she leaned on my arm and walked along a random trail with our other relatives who paid no attention to Heidi. Alot of them had issues with her because she was tactlessly honest. But she explained all about which sisters got along in her family, and which sister was always the odd one out. I'd had no idea about all this drama, but it intrigued me to realize that they had all been young once. I also wondered why my siblings and I got along much better than they had.

I remember feeling close to her, because she found it worthwhile to really talk to me. I felt like her equal, her friend, not just some little kid hanging out with the old relatives (to whom everyone under 50 is still a child of somebody's). She seemed to have such a vibrant, young spirit in her. I learned to be very open and truthful from her example.

My mom always reminds me to use tact with my honesty. But sometimes I don't listen, because it's more fun to be a Heidi.