Myrt

The phone rang shortly before 11 p.m. I was in my late twenties, and young gal though I was, I didn't usually get phone calls that late. I knew it wouldn't be my family back in Toronto as it would be 2 in the morning their time.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's Marilyn."

As my Dad's sister, she was my Auntie Myrt. I'm not quite sure how the nickname got started, but I know it had something to do with my grandmother - she gave everyone nicknames. My sister and I were called Sally or Sarah or Milly or even George by our "Nanny" as we grew up, and only occasionally by our proper names. So Marilyn somehow became Myrt, but she would announce herself as Marilyn on the phone even though I didn't call her that.

"What are you doing UP? It's 2 in the morning your time!!"

She laughed but sounded weary. She'd been living with cancer for some time and had trouble sleeping. Feeling restless and lonely, she'd picked up the phone to call someone who she knew would still be up. We chatted for a while until she felt like she might be able to sleep, and then hung up. I felt sad for her. I knew what it was like to be lonely. I had moved to California by myself two years earlier and although my life was full and fun, I achingly missed my family and friends back home.

She had never married, had been self-sufficient for a long time, supporting herself as a nurse after nursing school. She was a heavy smoker, a bit of an oddball (in a family full of them), but loving and generous, skilled and creative, and a great cook like her mother. She's still the only one ever able to bake my Nanny's chocolate cake successfully.

Over the years I had sometimes gone long periods without seeing her, while I was in college and then after I moved to California. But even though we sometimes rolled our eyes at her non-stop smoking, our family is close and Sunday dinners were always a great time to catch up.



Our family had a busy year in 2000.

My sister brought my beautiful niece into our lives, and Auntie Myrt adored her. Couldn't get enough of those chubby cheeks and chipmunk chuckles.

That summer, my parents sold the home I'd grown up in, and I married my Englishman that fall.

She was resplendent that day in a new dress and shawl, and I think she felt as good as she looked. Concealed in her hand tucked behind her dress in this photo, there was the ever-present cigarette.




Later that year Auntie Myrt began to get sick again and for the next year and a half went through rounds of chemotherapy and got steadily weaker. Even though I was living in California, I was home frequently and felt an increasing closeness to her in a strange way. I remember being home for Easter and feeling an upsurge of love for her, sitting quietly at the dinner table with her bald head and a sweet smile as she watched her grand-niece entertaining us. I bent over from clearing the dishes and gave her a hug from behind, nuzzling my cheek against hers. She reached up to grip my hand tightly and I kissed her on the cheek. I don't remember ever doing that before, we weren't particularly affectionate like I was with the rest of my family - hugs hello and goodbye, perhaps.

She had a complicated relationship with my grandparents, but remained very close with them, and revered my Dad. He was her big brother.

Less than two years after my wedding, she died with my Dad at her side. He called me in California and said "She's gone home." Although we were all expecting it, and even wishing for it by that point as you do when you watch someone suffer, the tears jumped into my eyes. "Oh Dad, you're all alone!" My mother and sister were away that weekend, and I felt keenly the sorrow for my Dad that he was the last one left in his family.

The night before I got on a plane to fly home for the funeral, I woke up with a start at around 2 a.m. I felt peaceful and calm and I knew with absolute certainty that my aunt was in the room with me. As dearly as I loved all of my grandparents and grieved their passings , this was the first time I unquestionably felt the spirit of someone in my life who was gone. Right. There.

She was okay. I knew.

I realize, with some years between then and now, that one of the reasons I felt a kinship with her was the depression that I occasionally experience, and which she suffered to a much greater degree for many years of her adult life. Maybe she sensed it too.

Today would have been her birthday, and she'd been on my mind even before I noticed it on the calendar this morning and called to chat with my sister about it. I know my Dad will have been thinking of her too, and my mother who like me still has Auntie Myrt's birthday on her calendar.