v. 47 A Complicated Goodbye: On Visiting My Aunt Before She Died
Welcome to Life, Created—a new [old school] blog for modern times. This twice-a-week(ish) dispatch is a space for us to dig deeper, share ideas, recognize microjoys and build community beyond the mindless scroll.
Content note: This essay includes reflections on complicated family relationships, grief, estrangement, and death. If any of those subjects feel tender for you right now, please take care as you read.
Last week, my mom’s last remaining sibling passed away at the age of 78.
In the Jewish tradition, we bury the dead as soon as possible, so her funeral was held the next day. The funeral was small and quiet. The only people there were her children, their spouses, a handful of teenage grandchildren …and me. That was the entire group. There were no old friends, no extended relatives, and no neighbors who came to pay their respects. There were no eulogies, and aside from the prayers spoken by the rabbi, no one shared any words. In fact, I was the only one who cried. One of the grandchildren teared up too, though I suspect that had more to do with the emotional confusion of watching a casket being lowered than with grief for my aunt. I can’t say for sure, though.
To be fair, my aunt was a deeply complicated woman. And I say that knowing it might sound polite when what I actually mean is this: she was bitter. Intensely so. For as long as I can remember, that bitterness shaped everything about her. It defined her relationships, the way she spoke to people, and the way she carried herself in the world. She was hard. And she made it hard for others too. That included everyone in our family. Everyone.
She had been estranged from many of us for decades. I hadn’t seen her in thirty-five years, and I hadn’t seen her sons, my cousins, in more than twenty years. The only person in our immediate family who ever made a real effort to stay in touch with her was my mother, who tried in all the ways that soft-hearted people try with someone who refuses to meet them halfway. And eventually, the emotional labor became too heavy, and my mother, for all her generosity, finally reached a point where she couldn’t do it anymore either.
I remember it clearly because it was the week my mother was dying. She was in and out of lucidity, her body shutting down quickly, and during that time, she asked me not to answer her sister’s calls. She didn’t want to talk. More specifically, she didn’t want to deal with her sister’s drama, which she knew would inevitably take over. She asked me not to tell her sister she was dying and I honored that request.
After my mother passed, I finally called my aunt and told her what had happened. She was surprised and didn’t have much to say. Though she planted a few trees in Israel in my mother’s honor, which is a customary act in Jewish mourning. We didn’t speak much after that.
My oldest brother, on the other hand, had kept a thin thread of communication with her by text in the years after our mom died. She’d occasionally reach out with fiery messages, and he’d respond with updates or questions. A few months ago, he mentioned she’d gone silent, which was unusual. He asked if I had heard anything, and I hadn’t. But I did have a distant connection to one of her sons, so, out of curiosity or maybe instinct, I reached out to my cousin on LinkedIn. That’s when I learned she had fallen over her dog and had been hospitalized for more than six weeks. None of us had known.
Knowing that she was hospitalized stirred something in me that I can’t explain neatly. I didn’t feel guilt, and I certainly didn’t feel obligated. But I did feel an unmistakable pull to go see her even though she was 2 hours away. It felt less like a thought and more like a knowing. Honestly, it felt like my mother was whispering, “Go.”
So I did.
On March 25, 2025, I sat beside my mother’s only living sibling for the first time in thirty-five years. I didn’t know what I was walking into. I didn’t expect anything, and I certainly wasn’t looking for a moment of reconciliation or redemption. I was prepared for discomfort but that’s not what I found.
She was genuinely happy to see me, and it was a beautiful visit. We didn’t rehash the past, and we didn’t try to explain away the decades of her behavior. But at one point, in barely a whisper, she offered an apology. It was quiet, unexpected, and sincere, as a single tear rolled down her cheek. I could hardly believe it. I asked what she was sorry for, and she said softly, “For all the time that’s passed.” That was it.
We simply sat in the same room. She was weak and tired, and her speech was slow, but she didn’t push me away. For the first time in my life, her quiet didn’t feel like a defense. She was warm and called me “sweetie,” a term of endearment that I didn’t think she even knew. The edge I had always associated with her had softened, just slightly. And I recognized it for what it was, the stillness that sometimes arrives near the end. That moment, strange as it was, felt honest. And it felt necessary.
I didn’t visit her to fix anything. That was never the point. I went because something told me to bear witness. I went because I knew, without question, that my mother would have wanted someone to show up. And even if she hadn’t said it aloud, I think she would have been proud that it was me.
Four months later, as I stood at her graveside, I thought about that hospital room and how little was said between us, and how much was felt anyway. I thought about the quiet, about how often people confuse quiet with healing or acceptance, when sometimes it is just the absence of more pain. I was, essentially, the only one who cried at her funeral, and I’ve replayed that moment in my mind more than once. I wasn’t crying because we had been close or because I would miss her presence in my life. I was crying for the sadness of it all, for the years of isolation, for my mom, for the complicated grief of a family that never quite found its way back to each other, and for the part of me that still wishes some of it had been different.
There are people whose absence leaves a space filled with love and memory. And then there are people whose absence feels like a long silence that no one ever really knew how to break. And my aunt was the latter. Her death did not leave a gaping hole in my life, but it did leave a mark, a small, sharp one.
Not every relationship becomes what we want it to be and not every ending brings resolution. But even then, we can still choose how we show up. We can choose softness over resentment. We can choose to witness rather than explain or blame. And when the time comes, we can choose to sit beside someone who once made things hard, simply because it feels like the right thing to do.
That visit in March didn’t change anything, but it reminded me that not everything needs to be healed in order to matter. Sometimes presence is enough. And in this case, it was. I wish her well on her journey, and I do hope to see her again someday. In another place, in another lifetime.
Every essay features a section called “One Fine Microjoy” – an experience, place, or thing that brings me joy, grace, and hope amidst life’s ups and downs. I hope it invites you to recognize and appreciate the delights that ground, inspire, and enrich our journey.
Me and a lobster roll: the showdown.
This week’s microjoy: Ira and I took a road trip to Maine, just the two of us. Long drives, coastal air, and a very personal mission to eat as much lobster as possible. I failed. Not for lack of trying, but because “enough lobster” doesn’t exist. Still, it was a much-needed microjoy in the middle of a heavy time to be alive.
P.S. Per usual, if this resonated with you- PLEASE repost, comment, share and spread the word.
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With love, wisdom [and small mercies] from Montclair. xx
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