This week I visited with my Aunt June, a kind, wonderful and very loving lady. She’s called an assisted living residence home for about a decade now, and she gets along so well with the staff there that she considers them family. At the end of this month she’ll be joining me and the family for Thanksgiving dinner, but the weekend before then I’ll be helping cook up her own feast to share with the fabulous people who help her on a daily basis. Aunt June just turned 89, and if you want some advice about cooking, sewing, dating, fishing, or really anything, you can’t get much better than her.
When I sit down at the little table in June’s kitchenette, a steaming cup of coffee and a plate full of cookies in front of me, I know I’m in for a treat. If I have a problem, I don’t hesitate to share it. The passing years have granted my aunt the ability to take my problems, no matter how large I think they are, and turn them into minor things, opportunities really. So I don’t hang onto my private thoughts when I’m at the kitchen table, because someone so much smarter, wiser, and funnier than me is available to make things so much easier. But I didn’t have a problem to bring before Aunt June this time, so instead, she told me a story.
Stories from older relatives will never lose their magic. Even if you’re pushing pretty close to 60 yourself, there’s just something about listening to someone who has walked this planet before you share their experiences through the lens of memory. There’s no better gift than a story, and I hold every single one of Aunt June’s stories dear to my heart. This week, she wanted to talk about Amos.
Amos is Uncle Amos, passed on now for just over 20 years. According to Aunt June, Amos was a hoot his entire life, and she wanted to talk about when they met, when she was just 18 years old, and Uncle Amos was a young soldier, shipping out that very next day for Germany to fight in World War II. With Veteran’s Day this week, Aunt June has been thinking about those early days, and how romantic and handsome her late husband had been in his uniform. She remembers that he swept her off her feet and they’d shared a dance before he was due to the train station, and her heart was stolen, just like that. They wrote letters back and forth, and when the war ended the next year, they were married. She still has the letters he sent her, and they’re full of jokes and anecdotes about his friends. She only takes them out once a year, on their anniversary, because over the years they have worn thin and delicate from so much handling. She broke this rule, during my visit, so I could see this piece of history and love that has survived the better part of a century.
When I left Aunt June’s apartment, I maybe hugged her a little bit longer than I normally do, thinking that this week is hard on her, living with these memories and missing Uncle Amos. But when I looked into her eyes, she squeezed my hand, and I realized that for her, this Veteran’s Day isn’t sad, something to get through as quickly and painlessly as possible. It’s a celebration of her late husband, and all of his fellow soldiers, and all of the men and women who have come after him, and I realized that’s the way it should be. So if you know a veteran, or the family of a veteran, thank them this Veteran’s Day, and let them share a story with you; you won’t regret it.