My Aunt Charlotte died today.
She was up and about in her assisted-living apartment, had a chat with her youngest daughter, was a bit winded so took a seat just before or while getting a nebulizer treatment, and when the nurse returned, she was gone.
Just like that, she was gone.
Not “just like that”, really. She’d been in and out of the hospital for the past 6 months, year, and she was in her eighties. Still, I thought I’d see her again.
I saw her at my niece’s wedding this past June, but didn’t get a pic of her; here’s one from 10 years ago, probably at that same niece’s graduation:
She was a funny lady, always crabbing about something but always with good humor. She could dish it out, take it, then dish out some more. Her kids, my three cousins, were terrible with her, which is to say, wonderful. They loved her and she loved them.
I worked for her when I was in high school. She ran a janitorial service, so a few nights a week during the summer I’d head down to her place and we’d (sometimes one of her kids, sometimes my brother) head to some business in Sheboygan—a bank, say, or a law office—and empty trash cans and wash windows and vacuum and clean the bathroom. It didn’t pay much, and she expected good work, but she didn’t didn’t exactly crack the whip with us. Once I went off to college, that was the end of my employment with her, but my brother spent a few years during and after high school cleaning.
Char always had something going on. She worked long after she probably needed to, but she like to get out, liked her independence. She lived in the house where she grew up, one of the oldest ones in Falls, and she was a common sight at the local coffee shops and diners. And she’d always show up to her grandkids’ games and plays and whatnot, griping about the cold or the hard benches—but never about the grandkids. They loved her and she loved them.
I always liked to see her when I was back in Falls. We’d sit down and she’d have a story and pretty soon we were laughing and teasing each other. When I was little I’d sometimes stay over at her house, and I have the vaguest memory of her dog, Schnappsie. Schnappsie was a dachshund, and I liked to sit on her couch with my back slightly out, so that Schnappsie could snuggle in behind me, his head off one hip with his tail off the other.
One more story: her house, as I mentioned, was old, with the requisite gloomy basement. But one year, at a party of some sort or another, the tornado siren went off, so we all crowded down into it with our plates of cake and sodas, folding chairs spread out next to the caved-in cistern. I don’t know if or where that tornado touched down, but we kept on going.
I feel bad for my cousins, losing their mom, but I feel even worse for my mom. Her oldest (half-) sister, Mickey (née Thelma), died years ago, but the age distance was so great that they didn’t have much of a relationship. Charlotte was next, and then Janet (who is ailing), and then my mom. My mom and Charlotte talked regularly; they were close, they loved each other.
Here’s a shot of all of them with their parents and some cousins:
That’s my Aunt Mickey, on the far left, with her son, Ted, my grandpa behind her. Charlotte’s next to Mickey, with my mom right in front of her and Janet next to my mom; that’s my grandma (who died before I was born) behind Janet, and the cousins, Kay and Violet, on the right.
That was almost 72 years ago.
My mom’s the youngest, as I’m the youngest not just of our immediate family, but of that generation of McCues. There are children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these McCues, scattered across the country. I won’t be able to make it back to Wisconsin for the funeral, but many of us will.
Because she was Charlotte, and she was loved.
AbsurdBeats 