My girl.
Grief is so insane, because never in my 36 years of living did I think at 7am PST, I’d get the call about the event that I’d been promising you I’d hold your hand through. Transition. I spent so much time learning about death doulas to find ease and comfort in a moment, I never wanted to happen.
it was something we both shed tears over as we leaned over and whispered in confidence about.
“I’ll hold your hand, I’ll remind you that in that moment when you’re facing the next chapter that you remember you have never been, and will never be alone.”
But, as with your life, plans change, and so to you, I raise my glass.
You were the blueprint for me. The example of what success, stability, and fierceness can be. And to stand on your shoulders, from the image you painted so vividly for me to grow and expand through, I can only sing your praises.
There are so many memories and moments, even in the words I leave on this post, keyboard covered in tears, I can only thank God for.
Aunt Ann was the epitome of BOSSY. And I say that with my whole chest, because that’s exactly who she was.
Educated in the Lincoln Heights School System, she was the kind of woman who did it all and made it look easy. She sang in the choir, was editor of the school newspaper, kept stats for the boys’ basketball team, and graduated valedictorian of her class in 1962. She went on to attend Ohio State. She started as a file clerk and became one of the first Black employees at AT&T — and didn’t stop there. She worked her way up to management, in a building and in a decade that was not waiting for her to do that. She did it anyway.
She was also, famously, bullheaded. If you sat across from Aunt Ann, you were getting a debate — basketball, football, golf, tennis, politics, didn’t matter. She had a take and she was bringing it up, because the latest tennis match was important. She read constantly. She stayed up on your life.. like really stayed up, asked real follow-up questions, and remembered what you told her last time.
And she took us places.
I’ll never forget the year she took all of her siblings, and all of us — the nieces and nephews, some bratty, bad ass kids — to Las Vegas (FROM OHIO!!!). We flew out together. We stayed at the Excalibur. We rode in a limo. Every one of us had our own yoyo, because of course we did. While the adults were out gambling and having their grown-folks time, Aunt Ann was the one who took us kids to the arcade, to the kiddie casino, made sure we had somewhere to be and something to do. That was Ann. Handling her business and making sure nobody got left behind. Boss energy.
After my mom passed, going into my sophomore year of college, things between me & Aunt Ann got complicated for a while. Grief does that — it doesn’t just take the person you lost, it shakes everything around them too. But she kept the door open. She stayed soft where she could’ve gone hard, and she showed up for the rest of my college years even when it would’ve been easier not to.
At my graduation from Miami University, I looked over at her in the stands. And without a word, she held up a photo of my mom. Just held it up and waved it around, so I could see it.
She didn’t have to say anything. I knew exactly what she meant. I’m here. She’s here too, through me. You are not walking this alone.
That photo — held up in silence, in a crowd, on one of the biggest days of my life — is just one moment of many that I’ll carry the longest.
This past April, Aunt Ann passed away. And in the photo I keep coming back to — the one where my mom is kneeling right beside her, my grandma just behind them — I keep thinking about how my two angels are together again now. The two of them spent so much of their lives caretaking for each other, in ways big and small, seen and unseen. I have to believe that’s still true, in heaven. That they found each other again, and they’re still doing what they always did… looking out for one another.
My girl. Aunt Ann.
Thank you for the yoyos, and the arcade and the limo and Circus Circus. Thank you for the steak dinners and the sports debates and asking about my life like you actually wanted to know. Thank you for opening your home to me, for the celebrations in my pivotal moments, for introspective conversations, and every other moment we shared. Thank you for staying when you didn’t have to. Thank you for holding up that photo, too. Thank you for showing, in action, over telling what it looks like to be a loving, supportive community and family member.
I’ll forever hug you, and hold your hand and I’ll continue to talk to you about everything and remind you, in this next chapter, that as my angel you will never be alone.
Rest now. You earned it.
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