My Ann

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…"

I have lost someone I love. I am not her daughter, spouse, sister, or grandson. In fact, I have not seen her in years. But I am bound to her by love, blood, and life experiences. She is my kin, and that term carries more meaning than a yearly Christmas card or exchanged pleasantries.

My first memories of Ann are from when I was a small child. I was painfully shy, and I approached our family gatherings with much apprehension even from a very young age.

One year, while I was still small (maybe 6 or 7, I can't quite remember), my Mom told me she was going to get some coffee and dessert. I was paralyzed. I had to decide quickly which was more horrifying: walking through the line with my Mother and having to speak to everyone, or being left alone while she acquired refreshment. Mom suggested I wait for her on the couch. It seemed pretty safe. I would be sitting out of the way; and if noticed, I could back myself into a corner and cover my face with a cushion.

I approached the seating area tentatively. Thankfully, most people were visiting or getting food elsewhere in the house. But I remember Ann being there, on the same couch--which seemed huge at the time, but was probably quite small in reality. I remember sitting beside Ann, but not too close in case I needed to bolt. I have no idea what she and I discussed, if anything at all; I simply remember feeling safe. She didn't invade my space. She may not have even addressed me directly, but I knew immediately (even as a young child) that she respected me, just by her way with me. (Her sisters have always been that way too.) From then on, the parties were much easier to survive, having another ally in my repertoire.

Many years later, when my Memaw was in the last days of her battle with colon cancer, Ann and her husband Charles came to the house (traveling quite a long way) for a final visit. I was a mess. I don't think I really showed it, but a huge piece of my life was about to move on from this world, and I was beside myself with fear and grief.

I had returned home from college the previous day to find the woman who was once my source of far too many things to list--including my earthly experience of the Divine--a battered and bruised, poisoned shell. Cancer sucks, y'all! She was in and out of a coma. To me, she already looked dead. I walked into her room and immediately walked out because I didn't want her to see or hear me fall to pieces at the sight of her. It seemed I would not have an opportunity to say "Goodbye;" but I was wrong. Later that day, right before Ann and Charlie arrived, Memaw returned to us for a little while. I was relieved and elated.

I accompanied Ann to pick up food for our family that evening. She was still recovering from a brutal vehicle accident; and though I don't remember the details of her condition, I do remember that she drove with a special device on the steering wheel because she did not have full use of the only arm and hand that were (at the time) not paralyzed. I mention this detail because--to me--that's just the type of person she was, particularly when her (extended) family needed her: unstoppable.

We had a nice visit in the car, though not much was said between us. I suspect she recognized my need to escape the situation briefly to process some things, while still being present in a way. As we were pulling into the driveway at my grandparents' house, I was telling her how thankful and happy I was that Memaw had awakened briefly, and that we had seen each other and talked to one another at least one last time. As long as I live, I will remember vividly what happened next. It has always been one of the most important elements of my grief and closure in that phase of my life, and it still brings tears to my eyes. Ann looked at me, smiled lovingly and sympathetically, and said, "She woke up to see you."

Anyone could have said that to me, but it would not have been the same. Ann meant it. Ann knew something--a lot of things--about grief and heartache. She had both professional and (more importantly) life experience in harsh reality. She had worked with and studied patients in comas. She had been in a coma not too long before that. And she had said "goodbye" to both of her parents. She was offering me sincere comfort, not a watery platitude.

Ann was many things to many people. I was never close enough to her to experience any real flaws or know many details about her every day life, or its joy and pain. But she remains a role model to me. In my mind and heart, she still epitomizes strength. In fact, there's a lot of strength found in the genes of that side of my family. She had a beautiful smile and a great laugh; and I know these things about her because she always seemed to be doing one or both of them when I saw her. And from when I was very young until the last time I saw her, she always treated me with respect, as an equal. I have always viewed her as someone with wisdom, but she never ever treated me like a child (in the sense that some adults treat children as an alien subspecies to be patronized or dismissed).

These are my memories of her; my perspective of someone I love, which belongs to no one else. I am thankful to have known (and be related to) someone like her; and I want to be more like my Ann.