My Aunt is an amazing human being and the funnest, most loyal person on the planet. I was born when she was 13 years old. She never treated me like I was annoying or unwelcome because I was 13 years younger than her. She changed my diapers when I was a baby, and always played with me when nobody else wanted to, and eventually, as I got older, we became more than Aunt-niece, we became best friends. When things were rough at home, I went to see her. She always tried to protect me. Every weekend I’d go out to the movies and dinner with her and her friends. I couldn’t really explain what she did for me growing up because she’s the only one who really gets it and the only one who could really be there at that time.
When I was 17 years old she took me into her home even though she couldn’t really afford to take care of me. She let me stay there rent-free and she supported me no matter what, she accepted the consequences of that support with no regrets. She made a lot of sacrifices for me that year. It was with her support I graduated high school and transformed into an adult capable of taking care of myself completely. My Aunt has always been a goddess to me-- flawless and way, way high up on this untouchable pedestal. She is beautiful, intelligent, extremely fun to be around and doubly blessed with superior creativity AND organizational skills. She was always wearing, saying, and doing the right thing, the beautiful thing, blowing everyone else (not just me) away with her awesomeness.
Eventually I became an adult, and began to relate to her not as a worshipping child, but as another adult. I began to see her as a whole person, not an image of perfection. I began to realize how alike we are, how many of the things I’ve always struggled with, she struggles with too–she just keeps it to herself. She was always strong for me and I didn’t realize she was making herself be strong – I just assumed it didn’t get to her.
My Aunt is not a touchy-feely person like me, she doesn’t rave about the people she cares about, she doesn’t go out of her way to say, ‘‘I was thinking about you today,’’ she just shows it with her actions. She recently married and had to move out of state, which was a huge loss and difficult adjustment for us both to make. We talk regularly on the phone, but I always felt a certain sense of loss, as if she has her new life now and I have mine and we have to go on independently.
When my uncle died unexpectedly 2 months ago, she was at home out of state. She wasn’t very close to her little brother, generally avoided that side of the family and hadn’t seen him in over a decade. But I grew up with him and I love my grandmother (another strong woman worthy of praise and celebration), and seeing grandma in so much pain at the loss of her son was too much to bear. I called my Aunt on the phone from my grandma’s house and she later told me, ‘‘I could hear in your voice that you needed me. My only job is to make sure you’re okay, and I realized you needed me, so I had to come.’’ So she drove 12 hours all by herself back home. I thought she was doing it for herself, but when she made this very matter of fact, almost self-evident ‘‘I had to be there’’ statement, I realized she was doing it for me. That is my Aunt’s love and what it has always been to me. For some reason I was very surprised to learn that she feels this love and loyalty just as strongly now that I’m a 25-year-old married adult than when I was a little kid needing her support.
My Aunt gave me so much growing up – her open mind, her calm, her love for 80s music. 
She is the reason I would rather go for a walk in the park than stay at home all day. She is the reason I know what a reasonable caloric intake is for a healthy human being. She is the reason I never allowed myself to get involved in an abusive relationship. She is the person who told me it’s not okay to express my anger with violence even if other people do. She is the person who taught me that not everybody believes in the same god, and that’s okay. She would turn to me and say, ‘‘Aren’t you glad that we are so lucky, that we don’t live in poverty, that we don’t have to get up at 4am and milk cows and feed chickens, that we don’t know the suffering of war or disease? Doesn’t it make you just want to go out and enjoy this beautiful sunny day?’’ She made me think about what gratitude really means.
Recently when I went to visit her she said to me, ‘‘I am absolutely amazed at the person you have become despite all you had to overcome. I am absolutely in awe of who you are.’’ Just being with her that night, talking to her about my childhood, about the past, about where we are now, I realized that I have become the person I worshiped all of my childhood. The strength I love in her is the strength I love in me. We are both intellgent, independent, positive, wise women and we will always be the best of friends.
Here she is (would you believe she’s almost 40?)
And me.
