2:35 p.m. - December 02, 2002
My grandmother catches a cold and I worry; an aunt dies, and I stroll
My aunt Miriam had a stroke Friday and will be disconnected from life support today at 3:30 PST. Another aunt called with the news, leaving a message on the machine:
Hi... is this Jason [xxx]... this is Pam... your aunt... your mother's sister Pam. I have bad news... your aunt Miriam has had a stroke and zero brain activity... She'll be taken off life support today... I don't have your mother's telephone number... Can you call?
Not something one wishes to hear on a machine. Called her to find out details and declined to drive up to Vallejo to be there when she's disconnected.
Does this mean I'm a bad person? My sister is going, but I don't care. I do care for a woman named Miriam whom I once knew as a child, but I don't care to reunite with a family that turned its back on mine nearly 15 years ago. I'm not one for face.
I have two cousins, Sean and Laura; I've met Sean once when he was in diapers and have never seen Laura, not even a photo.
I don't know these people at all.
I feel bad because family is not supposed to be like this and perhaps I should go, maybe this is an opportunity to draw near and remember today's strangers as yesterday's kin and hug and swear bygones, bygones.
She is 44 years old. Was?
The last time I interacted with her was several years ago when out of the blue I received an email; the following is verbatim. I remember things like this well:
Dear Jason,This is auntie Miriam. How are you? The family has always loved you. Are you still in college? It's a shame we've lost track. I'm writing to you because you're the only one who can help me save my house.... [big chunk of details excised] Can I borrow $5,000? Please call...?
This after years of silence.
I can't remember if she went to my maternal grandmother's service in 1998. Wait, she did, wearing a floppy-brimmed black hat with a small translucent bow around the crown, which means I must have seen Laura and Sean. But maybe not as I was busy listening to the crowd's comments about my mother That is the deaf-mute there.... Surprising, isn't it, for one of them to do so well.... I've heard she squandered the millions.... A shame Shirley gave birth to a defective child like that.... She's the one who went to the fancy college on the East coast, can you imagine?.... And Miriam was the one who Dana liked because she smiled.
And Miriam is going to die.
What I feel most is the taste of failure. Somewhere on my list of dreams was reconnecting with the family and she was [notice the tense, there] a key figure in the puzzle.
Once, a long time ago, she was my favorite aunt.
