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My Aunt Ange was not a famous person. None of my aunts were.
While the world exploded with violence and depravity every day, Ange lived a gentle life, in which her world was her family.
There were five sisters — my mom and my aunts: Ange, Mary, Jenny and Betty (technically, Betty was a sister-in-law, but nobody viewed her as anything but a bona fide sibling). I wrote a column a number of years ago called "Smoke gets in your eyes" that detailed the adventures of the five as they tried to avoid getting caught smoking by my grandfather. I deeply loved them, but I don’t think anyone who knew the group would disagree Aunt Ange was the gentlest of them all.
When I was young, my mother ran into the first of a series of illnesses that would mar her life, and sweet Aunt Ange took care of me. It was as if I found out I was really lucky because I had a second mother.
As I grew older and Mom made another one of her frequent trips to the hospital, it was Aunt Betty’s turn to take care of me, and I found out I had another wonderful mother — more stern on the surface than Aunt Ange, but one who loved me no less. And so it went. What would have been a misfortune to a lot of kids (having a parent who was often incapacitated by illness) became a way for me to deepen and understand my love of those aunts.
Families took care of one another back then. When Aunt Jenny’s husband was drafted into World War II, she and her teenage daughter came to live with us for a while. Some years later, when Aunt Ange and her husband came upon hard times, they, too, shared a home with us.
Aunt Ange and Uncle John had no children for most of their marriage (all of my other aunts in the family had one child each, except my folks who had two). Without any children of her own, Aunt Ange lavished her love and affection on the rest of us.
Then, in her early 40s, she unexpectedly had a child. All of us rejoiced. The birth of her baby became a singular event for our family.
My mom’s family all liked to sleep late, but Aunt Ange was the champ. The De Feo’s suffered from many illnesses, but insomnia was not one of them. When our family went to the Shore, we didn’t get to the ocean until about 2 p.m. The kids would wait patiently while, one by one, the De Feo’s would emerge from sleep like butterflies leaving a cocoon.
I never got enough of being with the family, whether it be the holidays or down at the beach. There was nobody luckier: to grow up with cousins and be loved by uncles and aunts. My cousins and I wanted nothing more than to make them proud. We lived for their compliments, and they were easy to come by.
Over the years, I have written often of my joyous holiday memories of exchanging gifts, of the ladies chattering away while the men played cards at Grandpop’s, of the kitchen thick with my uncles’ cigar smoke.
As years passed and they began to die, we realized what we had and what we were losing, and it just made the survivors more precious. After Mom died two summers ago, Aunt Ange was the only one left. She would often talk of how strange it was to be the one who remained. In some ways, with the loneliness that comes from being the survivor, she questioned if she was the lucky one.
She became the repository for all of our love. Her body had become fragile, but her smile was as bright as ever. She remained eager for news — the family now being scattered over many states, instead of just city blocks. Her love for all of us became a common bond. We no longer saw each other as often (sometimes years would go by), but by exchanging information through Aunt Ange, it felt as if we were still part of that strong group from days gone by.
My aunt passed away last week, a gentle lady unknown to the world at large. The last has now passed, all of the lively bunch that gathered to celebrate life at Grandpop’s, who warmed the cold nights of my childhood. All of them are now gone.
I am left to wonder: Where does all of that love go?
