I got to be an official aunt for the last time when my ex-husband’s sister and her family visited us in Toronto in 2019. What I mean by “official” is to be the legally married wife, and thereby, the legal, official aunt. Otherwise, I’m still an unofficial aunt every day to my friends’ kids and other children I meet along the way. But although not official, I will always be my nieces’ unofficial aunt.
Because I knew we were heading for divorce (but they didn’t at that time), I cried when they left, something I rarely do when people leave, because hey, there’s always WhatsApp and such. But I cried when the two girls kissed me goodbye, and I precisely remember the younger one telling me not to cry and wiping down my tears. I cried for the unexpected affinity I had built with my then-sister-in-law, although we had had a rocky start at the beginning.
Of course, these connections have morphed along the way, as they should. But at least, I got to cry into the loss in advance. Although I didn’t launch into a lengthy speech of how much I appreciated their family and being welcomed into the clan, I hope my tears communicated some of that appreciation.
In some relationships, though, the finality lies in your life’s blind spot. Finality is a full stop instead of a bunch of semicolons. It’s a point in a graph with no countdown leading up to it. A snapshot, a drop of blue ink. This finality crosses the dark road like a shaken-up deer; the driver barely avoids the crash. It’s too late for tears of appreciation and anticipated loss when the loss screeches you to a halt.
One night, you’re thinking you finally found your forever. Two weeks later, you’re breaking up over the phone. If you’d known that that was the final night, you could have memorized the forming lines on his face, encouraged his dreams more, and stayed a tad longer.
