When you leave home for an extended amount of time, there's always that little voice that reminds you what you will be missing. In my case, when I left in September, I knew I would be missing a year of family gatherings, a year of birthdays, of dinners with friends... christmas programs, dance performances, game nights, coffee dates, movie nights, long directionless drives, walks in the park, and so on and so on, all of those events small and large that string together and define the year. Those events anchor our lives; they balance out the drudgery of the everyday and establish the moments of pleasure that define our existence.
Those are the things that you miss, that you trade for a new adventure. And I was and am glad that I did. I know that there are years and years ahead, that this one year contained a different set of events to anchor me. This year away includes its own small, normal events and big, important holidays - with a change in the cast.
I don't mean to sound sentimental. But I am sentimental. And I knew that a small part of me would regret those things I have missed, the things I am missing.
There's also the tiny, tiny voice that worries you will miss something else. Something that you don't want to happen. You don't often voice that fear. But the fear that you will miss some tragedy stays with you as well.
My Aunt Becky was 53 years old. She has four children: Emily, Walt, Lauren, and Sara and her husband, Scott. She has a brother, Robert, his wife, Mariel, and a sister, Merry, and her husband Andrew. She has a mother, Alice. And, on this side of the family, one nephew, Stephen. And two nieces, my sister and me. I wish more than anything I could be with those people right now.
I can only imagine how they all feel right now because the physical distance makes it seem less real. My heart positively aches for my cousins.
And while I don't want to sound self-centered, the best thing I can do to commemorate my aunt is to recount a personal memory, one of the most affecting that I have of her: my Aunt, as one of the most enthusiastic about my homecomings.
When I left Memphis for Washington D.C. as a college freshman, I was excited and terrified. Nearly a year later I made the decision to transfer back to Memphis; it was one of the most difficult, conflicted decisions I have made. The decision carried with it all of the usual second-guessing: Would I regret it later? Would I like the University of Memphis even less? And the more self-deprecating: Am I a failure?
I have never forgotten what my aunt said to me when I came home that summer in 2006, "I know your mama's glad you're coming home. We're all so proud of you, and we're so glad you're home."
That is familial love at it's finest, and it has stuck with me ever since. I have never regretted the decision to come home, and I have certainly never regretted the decision to be closer to my family. The hardest thing for me to comprehend, to realize, is that she will not be there to say "We've missed you! We're so glad you're home."
My aunt loved her children and kept them close. That's how I remember Aunt Becky, never so glad as to have her family around her.
all the cousins (back of stephen's and my heads):
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