From left to right: Art, Vic, Anne, Ethel, Reta, Mary, Ruth, Doreen (the baby), Walter, Rose, "Pop" (Vince), "Mom" (Winnie, nee Brown), Frank.
Eleven kids. Now there remains only one: Doreen. The baby. My mother.
She phoned me Tuesday night, and right from the greeting I knew, betrayed by the slight rasp in her voice (from being tired and from talking to too many people), that Aunt Mary had died. Mary was Mom's last remaining sibling; her last sister.
I can't say it came as a surprise. Mary was 90, and she had been going downhill rather steadily over the past couple of years. Pretty frail already, she had been hit by a malfunctioning automatic door at a supermarket, and had broken her hip. Then some time later, in her room at the senior's residence just up the street from my parents' house, she had taken a fall. She wasn't using her walker, as she was supposed to do, and she took a dizzy spell and fell to the floor, putting her in the hospital.
I visited her there when I was home last summer, and she barely made an impression under the bedcovers, just skin over bones. When I said goodbye, I glanced back from the doorway, and I remember thinking it might be the last time I see her. Turns out it was. But she held out for quite a while. She would take bad spells, and they would fear the worst, then she would bounce back. She said she wanted to make it to 100! But a few weeks ago, she suffered a mild heart attack, and that was the beginning of the end.
My sister Anne, a nurse, happened to be home visiting from LA, and she was with her when she died. My mom had been doing yeoman's duty over the last 10 years or so, looking after Mary and taking her around town, running errands for her. Mom is almost 80 (hard to believe!), and I know it's taken its toll on her. I could hear the weariness in her voice, but maybe now she'll be able to relax a little more. No more worries for Mary.
Mary MacInnis. She and Uncle John (deceased 15 years ago) had no children of their own, so they took special interest in their many nieces and nephews. They lived in the States for many years, in the Boston area where her brother Frank and sister Ethel had also relocated, and then for their latter years they wintered in Florida and came home to P.E.I. in the summers. They lived in a little cottage in Bedeque, just past Summerside, my hometown. We spent quite a bit of time out there in the summers when I was growing up. Their cottage had a large patch of lawn that ran up to a cliffside, not many trees to speak of, pretty open, and then there was a set of creaky wooden stairs that led down to the shore. They were on the Dunk river (The Dunk!), and there was a fairly decent beach for swimming. A bit stony, but the water was usually nice. The water is always warmer on the south side of the Island.
Yep, many summers spent out at Mary and John's cottage. And it was a cottage, not a house. A little, quaint, cosy, cottage. Screen door, porch, kettle, mac-tac-ed cupboards, moths. At nights we'd play cards at the kitchen table--Kings in the Corner, Crazy Eights--while Uncle John constantly patrolled for mosquitoes, fly-swatter in hand. "Cheesus Mary, they're bigger this year than effer." To look at him, Uncle John was the gruffest man ever created, but once he laughed, there was no one jollier. I loved going outside there at night. The darkness would envelope you, feeling dangerous (how far is that cliff?) but strangely safe. The warm wind blowing the tall grass, the salt in the air, the sound of the waves on the shore, sounds from across the way seeming so near. The stars.
When I think of Aunt Mary, I think of iced tea in the summer. She introduced me to iced tea. I'd always have a glass when we visited them. When I was a teenager, I developed a weird liking for it. I'd have to have a can of powdered Nestea mix in the house, and when I came in at night, I'd fix my traditional triple-decker peanut-butter and strawberry jam sandwich and mix a tall glass of iced tea. No ice. Then go downstairs and watch SNL or Friday Night Videos.
Mary was always a very generous soul, and very kind to me over the years. She'd send me a card and slip in a $20 or $10 bill, sometimes more. What a dear. And she'd be so pleased when she received my thank-you card. She was always telling people about her nephews and nieces.
Sad that she's gone. Sad for my mom, that of all those 11 kids, she's the only one left. I'm the youngest of her eight kids, and I guess maybe there'll come a day when I'm the last of our brood--if things unfold as they should. If I'm lucky. Lucky! heh.
It would be nice if I could fly down for Mary's funeral, but I just can't swing it. I know she would understand. "Oh, don't be crazy! God, no," she'd say. I think, in a way, we kind of said our goodbyes when I saw her in the hospital last summer.
But that's not how I'll remember her. I'll remember the cottage, the warm breeze, the kitchen table at night, the iced tea, the kindness.
Summer's here. I think I'll go have a glass of iced tea.
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