Last week, my aunt died. Frances was eighty-two years old and had struggled with cancer for the past few years. When I visited Auntie Frances, as we called her, about two weeks ago, I barely recognized the frail, hairless old woman who lay curled on the bed. But the moment she began to speak in that throaty, kind voice, I knew it was the same Auntie who had warned me a hundred times to "be careful!" when I was leaping into the pool with my cousins. I told her that several of her grandchildren were in the house, just wanting to be near her, and that they loved her so much. She said, "I know. I'm so blessed, so grateful. I have a wonderful life."
I left Frances' house that night knowing, in a whole new way, what hope is. You see, my aunt's life wasn't always so wonderful. She had struggled through a difficult marriage, the early death of her husband, and the sole responsibility for an ailing and very demanding mother. But in the last ten years of her life, she embraced living as if none of that mattered. She became a kind of social butterfly, tooling around town in her minivan. She dressed in salmon and shocking pink. And she managed to make everyone feel like the most special person in the world.
In her seventies, after decades of struggle, my aunt embraced life. At the end, she didn't ask God why her life had been so hard. She just jumped in the water with her friends, and knew she was truly and deeply blessed.
Frances was of French Canadian descent, and her children asked me to sing a French hymn, "Beau Ciel," at her funeral. Beautiful Heaven. The place where, as the hymn says, we will see our God "face to face." I think I already have.
- Lisa Cataldo
