Vino Aunty
Now that Vino aunty is gone, I miss her more than I ever expected to.
She was rushed to the hospital and came back so many times - even the time the chaplain came and solemnly intoned "she is on her way home" - that I thought she was going to make it to a hundred.
We first met her when we were moving into an apartment in Novi. (This was when we were still new to Michigan and before our children were born.) It was a Saturday morning and with help from our friends we were hauling boxes and furniture up the stairs to the new apartment. An elderly lady came out from one of the downstairs doors and offered to make us lunch. "You must be so tired! Please tell me. I can make sandwiches for you." Of course we politely refused. But early the next day there was aunty on our doorstep carrying a bowl of hot fried lentil fritters. "I have brought some hot vades for you."
That was the beginning of aunty feeding us for years and years, even long after we had stopped being her neighbours. But as long as we lived in that building, a box of snacks, a bowl of curry, a plate of steaming idlis showed up regularly at our door. On saturdays, we usually went out late in the morning. Aunty would hear us on the stairs and peer round her door, "Please come and have some lunch!" It was almost like we did her a favor by stopping by her house to have some tuna sandwiches.
(Aunty didn't live alone. There was uncle. But he didn't say a whole lot. He listened with a quiet smile while aunty did all the talking. On rare occasions, his eyes twinkled and he would interject with a brief witty remark.)
That's how I will remember aunty forever - cheerfully showing up with a plate of hot delicious food for her new neighbors and getting so much joy out of feeding people....and I will remember what she said every time we visited, slowly stressing and meaning every single word, "I am So Happy that You Have Come." I will remember her zest for life - learning to play the accordion in her sixties and seventies, going to volunteer at the senior center.
But that's not the whole of her. Far from it! It makes her sound too much like a saint and not like the mischievous and badass (as her granddaughter said at her funeral) person that she was. She could tell riotously funny stories about her adventures, keeping the audience hanging on to her every word all afternoon.
There was the time she had gone on a trip to Calcutta with a religious group. At prayer time, she made sure to sit in the back. When everyone bowed their heads and shut their eyes, she slipped out the door and went shopping. (I can totally believe that story. How she loved shopping even at ninety! She wore me out in the mall last year, flitting from one store to another with her walker. She was worn out too at the end but so happy with the bargain blouses.)
There was the story of how she made her way alone to Liberia in search of a well paying job, leaving behind in Srilanka her husband and children and other extended relatives they needed to support. Once she was settled there as a teacher, she made it her mission to find a job for her accountant husband. The story took her to the highest levels of the ministry and was told with lots of humorous interludes.
She loved telling about her English teaching days in Liberia. One day she was trying to teach her students the pattern of beats in a poem. Textbook verses from lofty poets made not the slightest impression. That's when she hit upon this rhythmic ditty:
"Peeping through the window darling
What will people say
If you want to marry me darling
Come the proper way"
What she told the students was relatively tame. But she was not above sharing dirty jokes with grown ups. She embarrassed my friends once by emailing some to them. Believe me, she was not a sweet little puritan old lady.
Aunty and uncle had to leave Liberia suddenly after the coup of 1980. They came to America to be near their daughters and build new lives again. That's how we found them in Novi, Michigan in 1995. Although we moved from that apartment the following year, and aunty moved to Texas for a while before returning to Michigan after uncle's death, we managed to stay in touch until she passed away in June 2018.
Maybe I could write an entire book about aunty...how she tried to start a food delivery business once from her home but of course it failed (she gave away too much food), how one time she jumped up from her hospital bed because they tried to feed her something bland, how she took over my kitchen when she was visiting and had us all scurrying about trying to follow her orders, "cut the eggplant in big pieces", "fry the chicken ...put some more curry powder".
So many images come crowding into my mind - aunty bending over her beads and wires painstakingly making brooches and candle holders, aunty rummaging around in her cupboards or freezer because she couldn't let us go without a take-home gift of food, aunty worrying about Rahul and at the same time reassuring me that he would be just fine. (She would gaze at Rahul affectionately when he went to visit and say "He is growing quite handsome!" She would study him some more and add approvingly "His behavior is good." She came back from the hospital once and reported a long discussion she'd had with a doctor about autism - while lying in a hospital bed seriously ill herself!)
Old age is cruel. It doesn't matter who you are - it leaves you lonely, broken and a shadow of your former self. Aunty was 91 when she died. In the last few years she had to give up cooking, she couldn't be trusted with fire anymore. The number of visitors fell and the number of hospital stays went up. The second last time I saw her, she was in rehab, terrified of death. "Sreela, will I die? Sreela will I die?" she kept asking. I was able to distract her a bit by telling her about the giant snake I had just seen in the cafeteria (brought in for the amusement of the elderly residents). She perked up for a bit and said, "Sreela I watched the royal wedding on TV!" But then the discomfort overtook her and she crumpled up and moaned. The last time I saw her she was sedated and peaceful. Her eyelids flickered a bit when I called but she didn't see or recognize me. That was fine, I was happy she was free of pain.
She was rushed to the hospital and came back so many times - even the time the chaplain came and solemnly intoned "she is on her way home" - that I thought she was going to make it to a hundred.
We first met her when we were moving into an apartment in Novi. (This was when we were still new to Michigan and before our children were born.) It was a Saturday morning and with help from our friends we were hauling boxes and furniture up the stairs to the new apartment. An elderly lady came out from one of the downstairs doors and offered to make us lunch. "You must be so tired! Please tell me. I can make sandwiches for you." Of course we politely refused. But early the next day there was aunty on our doorstep carrying a bowl of hot fried lentil fritters. "I have brought some hot vades for you."
That was the beginning of aunty feeding us for years and years, even long after we had stopped being her neighbours. But as long as we lived in that building, a box of snacks, a bowl of curry, a plate of steaming idlis showed up regularly at our door. On saturdays, we usually went out late in the morning. Aunty would hear us on the stairs and peer round her door, "Please come and have some lunch!" It was almost like we did her a favor by stopping by her house to have some tuna sandwiches.
(Aunty didn't live alone. There was uncle. But he didn't say a whole lot. He listened with a quiet smile while aunty did all the talking. On rare occasions, his eyes twinkled and he would interject with a brief witty remark.)
That's how I will remember aunty forever - cheerfully showing up with a plate of hot delicious food for her new neighbors and getting so much joy out of feeding people....and I will remember what she said every time we visited, slowly stressing and meaning every single word, "I am So Happy that You Have Come." I will remember her zest for life - learning to play the accordion in her sixties and seventies, going to volunteer at the senior center.
But that's not the whole of her. Far from it! It makes her sound too much like a saint and not like the mischievous and badass (as her granddaughter said at her funeral) person that she was. She could tell riotously funny stories about her adventures, keeping the audience hanging on to her every word all afternoon.
There was the time she had gone on a trip to Calcutta with a religious group. At prayer time, she made sure to sit in the back. When everyone bowed their heads and shut their eyes, she slipped out the door and went shopping. (I can totally believe that story. How she loved shopping even at ninety! She wore me out in the mall last year, flitting from one store to another with her walker. She was worn out too at the end but so happy with the bargain blouses.)
There was the story of how she made her way alone to Liberia in search of a well paying job, leaving behind in Srilanka her husband and children and other extended relatives they needed to support. Once she was settled there as a teacher, she made it her mission to find a job for her accountant husband. The story took her to the highest levels of the ministry and was told with lots of humorous interludes.
She loved telling about her English teaching days in Liberia. One day she was trying to teach her students the pattern of beats in a poem. Textbook verses from lofty poets made not the slightest impression. That's when she hit upon this rhythmic ditty:
"Peeping through the window darling
What will people say
If you want to marry me darling
Come the proper way"
What she told the students was relatively tame. But she was not above sharing dirty jokes with grown ups. She embarrassed my friends once by emailing some to them. Believe me, she was not a sweet little puritan old lady.
Aunty and uncle had to leave Liberia suddenly after the coup of 1980. They came to America to be near their daughters and build new lives again. That's how we found them in Novi, Michigan in 1995. Although we moved from that apartment the following year, and aunty moved to Texas for a while before returning to Michigan after uncle's death, we managed to stay in touch until she passed away in June 2018.
Maybe I could write an entire book about aunty...how she tried to start a food delivery business once from her home but of course it failed (she gave away too much food), how one time she jumped up from her hospital bed because they tried to feed her something bland, how she took over my kitchen when she was visiting and had us all scurrying about trying to follow her orders, "cut the eggplant in big pieces", "fry the chicken ...put some more curry powder".
So many images come crowding into my mind - aunty bending over her beads and wires painstakingly making brooches and candle holders, aunty rummaging around in her cupboards or freezer because she couldn't let us go without a take-home gift of food, aunty worrying about Rahul and at the same time reassuring me that he would be just fine. (She would gaze at Rahul affectionately when he went to visit and say "He is growing quite handsome!" She would study him some more and add approvingly "His behavior is good." She came back from the hospital once and reported a long discussion she'd had with a doctor about autism - while lying in a hospital bed seriously ill herself!)
Old age is cruel. It doesn't matter who you are - it leaves you lonely, broken and a shadow of your former self. Aunty was 91 when she died. In the last few years she had to give up cooking, she couldn't be trusted with fire anymore. The number of visitors fell and the number of hospital stays went up. The second last time I saw her, she was in rehab, terrified of death. "Sreela, will I die? Sreela will I die?" she kept asking. I was able to distract her a bit by telling her about the giant snake I had just seen in the cafeteria (brought in for the amusement of the elderly residents). She perked up for a bit and said, "Sreela I watched the royal wedding on TV!" But then the discomfort overtook her and she crumpled up and moaned. The last time I saw her she was sedated and peaceful. Her eyelids flickered a bit when I called but she didn't see or recognize me. That was fine, I was happy she was free of pain.
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