The only person I consistently write about here is Pat. There’s an archive of Pat stories and reflections. Pat was my mom.

In the tapestry of all of the relationships, if Pat was once my center, directly adjacent was her sister, Nancy. Anne L. is her actual name, and for my whole life, and I guess her whole life, she flipped between the names Nancy and Anne, Anne and Nancy. For the family, it was Nancy.

Then, Nancy got married. Pretty sure it was 1970, but being around 5 or 6 years old, I may not be the best chronicler. From then on, there was another name change. The family ran everything together — NancyandRon.

I feel like it was every Friday night, but maybe it was Sunday. Let’s say every weekend. For every week of of my life as a kid, Nancy and then NancyandRon came over our house for a meal. During the week there was more often than not other visits and activities and meals and all sorts of things. My childhood memories all include them alongside Pat and my brothers and sister.

I can’t for the life of me figure out one memory in line with the historical record. A thing that never happens when you are the youngest of five kids happened. I got adult attention all to myself, and NancyandRon took me into the city of Boston to see the movie Doctor Doolittle.

If you had a gun to my head, I would swear the year was 1972, and I’d also claim that after the movie they took me to the Museum of Science, walked me through an exhibit on reproduction, explained all the things no one had ever told me about babies, and then shared the news that my cousin Ted was on his way.

Only thing is Doctor Doolittle came out in 1967. Back in ’67, my own father would have still been alive. I would have been only three.

The important part is Nancy did indeed tell me where babies come from. Nancy equipped me with so many things everyone needs to know. In my childhood, she was a colossus. She was a second mother. She was just so many things.

Pat had gaps in parenting. And, Pat’s precocious youngest child — the one clicking on a keyboard with these very words — had all her formative years overlaid with Pat’s toughest years. When I was 4, the world changed. My dad died, and buried with him was a part of Pat. Deep inside, she wore sadness that stayed for the rest of her life.

She soldiered on and raised us kids and did everything she could in a world not really welcoming of single moms. My school life coincided with Pat’s getting a teaching certificate and becoming a teacher.

Whenever Pat was too tired, or overwhelmed, or sad, or busy, or just not able to answer all of my questions, she turfed me over to Nancy. Nancy always had answers for me.

Nancy taught me about books and how to process real from imagined. When I began voraciously reading any book in front of me, which included The Exorcist around age 12, she explained adult themes and horror.

I learned about art, philosophy, travel, theater, museums, and culture at her knee.

Nancy told me stories about my dad that no one else did. My mother couldn’t talk about him. I think it hurt too much. But Nancy told me about fun trips and how she, 12 years younger than Pat, loved hanging out with my mom and dad when they were dating. She told me one of my favorite things to hear about my dad — That he always loved novelty, trying gadgets when they came out or new foods. I see my DNA in that memory.

Nancy also taught me about love and family. As a pre-teen or teen or whatever hormonal nightmare age, I did something wrong. In my apology to her, I made it about myself and said something about it being OK if she hated me. In her anger at my shitty apology, she taught me two things, how to apologize empathetically and sincerely and that she loved me and you can make mistakes and still be loved.

As an adult, Nancy was a co-conspirator in wrangling my adult relationship with my mom. We checked in with each other, Nancy would call me when my mom was pissed off at me, and we’d strategize. Late in her life, Pat wasn’t doing great at taking care of herself, and so then we could strategize on keeping her going.

I learned from Nancy a great strategy of managing Pat that always worked. Pretend you needed her help, even if you didn’t.

I suspect that ALL of my childhood years when Nancy was there visiting, and the prevailing narrative was that my mother was making sure Nancy had a good meal or help with whatever, it was a sham. Nancy let my mother take care of her, and then take care of her and Ron, and then take care of her and her family, because Pat needed it, as much or more than Nancy needed the help.

They both had death and overwhelming loss in common. My mother’s husband, and my aunt’s son, Tommy, left wounds that never fully healed. They also both hid their wounds and soldiered on.

Yet, in the worst times and the best, they were a pretty hilarious and awesome duo. I recently told my cousin Ted about when our grandfather, their father, was in a nursing home. Nancy hated the ritual of signing in and signing out and thought it was particularly stupid, when week after week the people at the home recognized all visitors. You couldn’t leave unless you signed out, apparently a gesture to keep the residents in.

So, she would make up fake names.

One day, she and Pat visited, and she signed them in as Charlotte and Emily Brontë. But, then, she had to leave before my mother, running out without telling my mother their fake names.

In the end, after a lot of frustration, my mother had to beg to see the sign in sheet. They were able to verify that the Brontë sisters had not, in fact, visited anyone that day.

One of my favorite weeks since moving to California was when Nancy came to visit. Her presence and everything she shared was for me the closest thing to M. meeting my mother.

It was incredible to hear Nancy’s views on San Francisco — A Mecca she had read about and wanted to visit. We took her to City Lights, and walked around North Beach talking about the Beats. She bought a “Howl” cap and I think a Ferlinghetti book. We ate fresh strawberries that she declared the best she had ever had. We cruised by the Berkeley campus, where she quoted Mario Savio and talked about how much his speeches from the steps of Sproul Hall meant back in the day. And, bonus of bonuses, a naked man tipped his cap to us while we crossed Castro Street.

With some of my cousins, my sister, a friend, and me, Nancy marched on the Whitehouse in January 2017, alongside an army of pissed off women.

I write all of this down, because as a co-worker said to me this week, “aunts can be important and weirdly influential.” And, yes, this aunt to me is very very important and was weirdly and enormously influential.

Nancy called me today. She called from hospice back in Massachusetts thousands of miles away. She called to say goodbye. We shared words of love and an awkward conversation that no one is ever prepared to have. And then we hung up.

I really wish it was not goodbye. I really wish it was au revoir. I hope for peace in the end.