The History of the World, According to My Aunt

Yes, Mary Nash, I still have an aunt!
(Mary Nash is a pre-teen friend of mine who happened to be at my house when I received a letter from my aunt.  She exclaimed, "You still have an aunt???"  It was cute!)

 And what an aunt she is!  The last remaining member of my mother's family--my mother's sister--she is a force to be reckoned with.  Aunt Rosie is the last repository of family info.  The last possible source of stories that died off with the rest of her kin.  Next month, Aunt Ro will be 91.  She lives with her only son in a country house near Rutland, IL.  Her son never married and has always lived with his parents, except for a stint in the Army during the Vietnam Era.  Her husband/his father died quite a number of years ago. 

Stubborn?  You'd better believe Aunt Ro is stubborn!  Every stubborn gene the Armstrong family ever had was deposited in my dear aunt.  (Her son is no less so.)  I heard stories about how she insisted that Paxton, IL, was north of Chicago, but when a map was produced to show her otherwise, she said the map was wrong!  Yeah...THAT kind of stubborn!  Over the history of the family, Aunt Ro was always sideways with someone--my mom, my dad, her brother, her sister-in-law, her husband's sister--you name it.  No matter the issue, the common denominator was always Aunt Ro.  She has to have her villains.

We have all known that about Aunt Ro and have tried to avoid it.  I seem to be the least successful in achieving Teflon status. It isn't that I haven't tried, but because I was always closest to the family and was honest, I found myself squarely in the line of fire for blame for whatever the perceived wrong was at the moment.  Aunt Ro's son is just two weeks younger than I.  We were thrown together a lot as children.  To hear Aunt Ro tell the tales, I was the brains and her son was the brawn of every bad escapade that ever happened.  We supposedly cracked a crate of eggs all over our grandfather's car.  I don't know.  I was too young to remember it.  But every time I hear the story, it changes a bit. 

Back in the mid-90s, some things happened in the family that created some drama.  I got blamed.  I wasn't the guilty party, but there was no dissuading Aunt Ro.  Thereafter, we had very little contact.  SAD!  Last weekend, I took the bull by the horns and decided to be the hero.  I called her.  We talked about things that weren't controversial.  It was pleasant.  I told her that I wanted to stay in touch.  She seemed amenable to that but said that her son would probably never get on board with that.  (I never did crap to him, so I don't know what his problem is.)  And then I got her letter....

In the letter, my aunt gave me clues about how to obtain a military marker for my brother's grave in light of the fact that we don't have his military records.  And then she went off on other things that had nothing to do with that...things that have apparently been on her mind.  It was her way of telling me off after all these years.  All of it, of course, was couched in her perception of being in "the know". 

For one whole day, I was stricken and stunned.  And angry.  The fairness gene in my body desperately wanted to retaliate and defend myself.  Then I realized:  this is Aunt Rosie.  Nothing I can say or do will change her perceptions, so I decided to give it up.  I picked up the phone and called her, and I will continue to do so as long as she will answer.  The conversation was only long enough to talk about the original issue which is getting a military marker for my brother's grave.   It's all good.

Character that she is...revisionist historian that she is...she is still my mother's sister and my last living aunt.    And I love her, flaws and all.