I’ll Always Love You, Aunt Rita — From your niece, Kathleen Farnolo Felleca

 

I don’t suppose it’s a common occurrence for a niece to write the eulogy of a beloved aunt.  And yet, that is the labor of love that I have assumed, as my dear Aunt Rita passed, yesterday, into God’s hands.  I am the writer in the family, so the task is mine.  And yet, words are flimsy things with which to convey the depth and breadth of my aunt’s Grand Canyon heart.  But, I must try; I must honor her in the way that I know best.

I’ll start with a funny and very telling story about my Aunt Rita.  In the early ’80s, I was living alone, gearing up to get married, and possessed of a pittance of a disposable income.  In a bridal magazine, I found the ideal gown, or rather, dress.  It had no lace and or sequins.  It had no train; in fact, it was tea length.  Totally off-kilter as far as wedding attire goes, this exquisitely simple dress was perfect for me.  It also retailed at $3,200, a sum far beyond my means. 

I took the magazine to my Aunt Rita, a retired professional seamstress, and asked her if she could make the dress for me.  “I’ll have to see the actual dress,” she mused, so I chirped, “Great! I’ll make the appointment.”  But I couldn’t get an appointment with the most exclusive bridal shop in all of New York’s five boroughs — which happened to be the sole shop carrying this unusual  dress.  It was an eight-week waiting period just to get in the door.

My aunt said “Baloney!”, dialed the shop, and barked, “We don’t have eight weeks!  My daughter is in the family way!”  With this double subterfuge, for I was most definitely not pregnant, we gained immediate entrance to the shop.  Given the assumption that cash register was about to ca-ching to the tune of $3,200, the sales person tripped over herself waiting on us.   The minute she’d cleared the dressing room, my aunt ripped the dress from my body and examined it for all of a minute.  Nodding crisply, she whispered, “I have it!  I know how to make this dress!”  When the sales lady popped back in, my aunt was berating me.  “You didn’t tell me this dress cost $3,200!  We’ll have to discuss with your father!”

Somehow, we reigned in our laughter until we’d cleared the shop.  And then my aunt declared, “We’ll go to the best fabric shop in Manhattan and get the most gorgeous silk.”  I said, “No, we’ll go to my favorite fabric shop in the city and get the most gorgeous silk.”  “No, my shop,” my aunt argued.  “No, mine!” I haggled.  She won.  And as it turned out, it was one and the same shop!

Over the course of weeks, in which I proceeded to wheedle my already tiny frame down to 90 pounds due to wedding-induced stress, my aunt crafted and altered that dress.  She also made sure that I sat down at her table, each and every time, to a wonderful, home-cooked, stress-free meal.

The dress was an exact line-for-line copy.  It was perfect.  The materials, including the small seed pearls scattered over the sleeves, cost a little over $300.  I loved it.  The only thing that my aunt refused to do was to sew pockets into the dress, which I’d requested.  She’d announced that, in the entire history of women walking down the aisle, not one had ever had pockets in her gown and she was not about to break tradition!

This story typifies my aunt.

If you had a problem, she was there for you.  She never picked up the phone and simpered, “I wish I could do something for you.”  Neither did she ask what you needed her to do.  She would simply show up at your door with the solution in hand, in the most roll-up-your-sleeves manner.  Again and again, I saw her do this for me, my parents, and many other members of our family as well as friends.

Her door was always open and she always set a meal before you.  Whether or not you were hungry, you always ate it, for it was fresh and delicious, made the old fashioned way: with love.  On special and not-so-special occasions, drinks flowed at her house with both moderation and joy.  My first taste of liquor, in fact, came via my Aunt Rita.  I can still feel her loving arms around me as she held me and lifted her Brandy Alexander to my lips.  I was five years old and my parents had a fit over that one little sip.  Or was it two?  She laughed, her brown eyes crinkling with joy as I pronounced the sweet, creamy drink luscious.

As for my aunt’s unwavering honesty, when she doled out advice, it always came straight from her heart; no BS involved.   Liars, back-stabbers, gossips, and the so-called well-meaning are a dime a dozen; to me, they are worthless.  People who have the guts to tell it like it is, and tell you to your face instead of whispering behind your back, are one in a million.  My Aunt Rita was that one in a million.

She was a wonderful role model for her two sons, my beautiful cousins Nicky and Michael who not only tolerated me when we were kids but actually enjoyed me.  I don’t think I’m taking liberties when I say that Aunt Rita was also a wonderful role model for her two daughters-in-law, and for every one of her nieces and nephews.  She was the best wife to my dear Uncle Rocco.  She worked hard for many years and balanced that work with genuine joie de vivre.  My aunt characterized what is best in Italian-American women, yes.  But beyond cultural boundaries, she characterized what was best in humanity.

Now that my aunt has passed into God’s hands, I’m going to honor her by being as honest as she always was.

The fact is, we live in desperate times. Too many of us lay awake at night wondering how we’re going to pay the bills and deal with the thousand little and not so little annoyances that plague us daily.  We worry about what happened to our savings accounts, our investments, our rapidly diminishing Social Security benefits, and a government that can give a you-know-what about any of that.

Well.  Here’s the deal.

All of us who knew and loved my aunt — and I include strangers; family friends she embraced and allowed to become like blood — all of us are rich for having received the gift of her unflagging love.   She was worth far more than her weight in gold; she was the Thousandth Man in the famous Kipling poem (okay, the Thousandth Woman).  Now that she’s in heaven, I don’t think she’ll be working, sewing golden threads into the angels’ robes.  She’ll be looking down upon us, loving us all and guiding us as we struggle to learn what she instinctively knew and practiced.  She’ll be sipping a freshly shaken Brandy Alexander, dancing to a Jerry Vale tune, and laughing because she won’t have to make another wedding dress for another clueless but loving niece!

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ’em go

By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.

But if he finds you and you find him,

The rest of the world won’t matter.

For the thousandth man will sink or swim

With you in any water.

 

(An excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s The Thousandth Man)