This morning, I received an email letting me know that my Aunt June has passed away. It was a little over a month ago that I received an email from a cousin letting me know that June had lung cancer and was no longer capable of living alone. Over the coming days, I received various updates about her condition, medical prognoses and family updates. One set of cousins brought her homemade cinnamon rolls, her medications were adjusted she was more able to carry on conversations; all of the discussions you would expect about an aging relative.

Another cousin set up a page with pictures of Aunt June. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, my brother wrote a great blog post about Aunt June.

To me, my extended family was always a mystery and Aunt June was the most mysterious. I come from an old New England family that traces its roots to the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Most of my relatives stayed in the area around Greenfield, Mass. My family moved west, all the way to Williamstown, forty miles away.

My mother had five siblings, six if you counted Cousin Betty, the eldest sibling, whom I never learned exactly how she was related to my family until she told my mother her story during her final days. There was Aunt Barbara. She was a widow who played the organ at a church in Turner’s Falls. She was the eldest, not counting Cousin Betty, and she had three daughters. Two had moved to California and I never remember meeting when I was young, and the youngest, my cousin Marty, was several years older. I was a young boy when cousin Marty got married and I remember catching the garter at the wedding.

There was also Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Charlie. They had moved south years ago, and I only met them on rare occasions. I don’t even remember who they had for children. I do remember that one year, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Phyllis were visiting and joined me on my birthday at a local restaurant. Our family rarely went to restaurants so this was a special event, especially since it was an expensive seafood restaurant, and if we ever did eat out it was at Friendly’s.

On the way home from my birthday dinner, my Uncle Charlie had a heart attack and spent the following days at a local hospital. He recovered and lived many years longer, finally passing away while I was hitchhiking across Europe.

Uncle Bud was another one of my mother’s siblings. He lived in Athol, MA and I always remember him as a jovial uncle, who among other things, had a snowmobile. He lived with his wife, my Aunt Rita. They had kids as well, but they were older and I remember stories about some of my cousins living in Australia.

My Aunt Susie and Uncle Fred had moved further away from Greenfield than her brother Bud had, all the way to Slate Hill, NY. We saw her and her family a couple times a year. She had two children, Jon and Dorian, who were the two cousins that were closest to my age. When my grandparents grew too old to live by themselves, they moved in with Aunt Susie and Uncle Fred.

Then, there was Aunt June. She had moved to California and lived there by herself. She never had any children and as I child I don’t remember ever seeing her. When my oldest brother hit the road soon after high school, he visited Aunt June and at that point, she started to take on a more complete and complicated persona. A few years later, I visited her as well. I didn’t delve into the mysteries of her life. I was too polite a New England boy to do that. Yet it was clear that she had shed the New England upbringing for a different life.

We never stayed in touch that much after my visit, but that is the way my family has always been. Now, Aunt June is dead, but her memory remains as an aunt that challenged her family history and went off to live her own life. It seems like we would all be better off if we had people like Aunt June in our lives.