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Finding Aunt Phil
by Erin O'Riordan
I don't have any in-laws. My husband, Johnathan, hasn’t spoken to his mother or father in years. I’ve never met them.
One day in 2005, Johnathan and I were at a graduation party for a college student who’d worked for our remodeling business. The student, Kathy, lived three cities over from us. By coincidence, Kathy’s parents’ home wasn’t far from where Johnathan’s former sister-in-law Greta used to live.
She still lived there, it turned out. As we were on our way back to the bypass that took us home, Johnathan decided to drive by Greta’s parents’ house. There she was, carrying in some sports equipment she’d just bought at a garage sale. She invited us in. We sat on her parents’ couch, and I got to listen to stories about my brother-in-law and two nephews. At the end of the visit, Greta gave us Johnathan’s mom’s (Anne’s) phone number.
Johnathan called his mother on the first. We tried to visit her later that day, but she wasn’t home.
On May 5th, I was at work. I was a tech at a mental health hospital, working with elementary school kids. We were baking chocolate chip cookies when Johnathan called to tell me that his Aunt Phil, Anne’s younger sister, was in the hospital. I’d heard of Aunt Phil before. At first I’d pictured her as a confused uncle, but "Phil" was really just a nickname for Phyllis. Johnathan liked her; she was like a second mother to him. But now she was in the hospital, battling cirrhosis of the liver. Because she’d recently had a double bypass, she wasn’t considered a candidate for a liver transplant. The doctors gave her a few months before her organs began to fail. Aunt Phil would die.
In the span of four days, I went from having absolutely no contact with my in-laws whatsoever to suddenly caring about one. One who was fighting a losing battle with a terminal illness.
After all of my cookies were baked and I came home from work, Johnathan and I got on the bypass and went to Aunt Phil’s hospital. We brought flowers. Aunt Phil greeted me warmly. She didn’t look like a dying person, actually. Her abdomen was swollen; Phil understood this to be from internal bleeding. But otherwise she seemed healthy. She was surprisingly young, only 56. The weirdest thing about this, though, was that Johnathan looked like his aunt. They had the same nose.
Aunt Phil told me about the time Johnathan, age three, sat in her driveway, eating mud. She told me all about Johnathan’s adventures with her daughter, Rachel. (Rachel was out of town that night.) They were like brother and sister. Johnathan has a sister, but he doesn’t know her well. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around him having a good, close relationship with any family member.
About two weeks later, Johnathan and I went over to Aunt Phil’s house. Rachel was there, with her three daughters. They’re adorable little things, very smart, and they all love to play softball. Aunt Phil, their grandma, was getting her things ready to go into a nursing home. (Remember, she was only 56.) We ordered a pizza. Rachel told me about how Johnathan and his brother used to hop on train cars. She and Johnathan once set a field on fire. Before we left, Aunt Phil gave us a photo of her parents, with her mom sitting on the back of an elephant. Her father used to work on the farm that took care of the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey circus animals. That photo hangs in our dining room today.
I’d heard a little bit of Johnathan’s family history before, but only from Johnathan. His relatives confirmed everything he’d told me, including his rocky relationship with his mom.
The last time I saw Aunt Phil, she had Johnathan and me bring her a hamburger Happy Meal so that she could give the toy to her granddaughters. She ordered it with a Diet Coke, even though caffeine is terrible for people who’ve had heart problems. Aunt Phil did whatever she wanted, just like Johnathan does.
Before we left, she gave us a box of things Anne had sent over. It included pictures of Johnathan as a child, and some of his childhood books and toys. Which was good, because the line of communication between Johnathan and Anne had already broken down.
Aunt Phil died on June 19th, 2005. That day, Johnathan and I went swimming and visited my parents. The next day, as I was on my way to work at the hospital, I got the news. Johnathan called me, saying he’d just gotten off the phone with Rachel, who said that Aunt Phil passed away.
The funeral took place on June 21st, the first day of summer. It seemed more like a family reunion or a picnic than a funeral, with everyone joking around and Phil’s granddaughters running around, playing. No one seemed particularly sad. Maybe it was because Phil’s death was expected a month in advance, and we had time to prepare. Maybe it was just that way because that’s how Phil was– tough, full of life, funny, and not too sentimental. But I missed her. We all did.
For the brief time that I knew her, Johnathan had a second family, other than the one he married into. That was weird, but it was good weird. It was almost as if I had a mother-in-law. Johnathan continues to have a friendly, though long distance, relationship with his cousin Rachel. And none of this would have been possible if we hadn’t, coincidentally, been invited to our helper’s graduation party.
copyright © 2012 by Erin O'Riordan
(Names of living persons have been changed to protect their privacy.)
Erin O'Riordan, despite what her Irish name may lead you to believe, is of mixed Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Pagan descent. Following the philosophy of Joan Borysenko, she proudly embraces all of her diverse spiritual heritage. Her spiritual-sexual writings include the Pagan-ritual-inspired erotic novel, Beltane, from Eternal Press. Visit her online at www.aeess.com.
