Monday, December 12, 2005
So sad
My aunt Pat died suddenly on Saturday night. The cause of her death is shrouded in secrecy, but it appears to have been cancer.
Pat was married to my uncle Hector, my father's brother. When she was in her 30s, in the early 1960s, her first husband left her with 3 children. Although she was the daughter of a well-off family, she had to fend for herself and her boys, so she took some of her money and bought a boarding house, which she ran single-handedly for several years while raising her sons. Then she met my uncle, a divorced father of one and an officer in the merchant navy. They fell madly in love and married quickly, both of them swept off their feet by the intensity of their connection to one another. But what to do? Hector spent most of his time sailing around the world. How could they be together? Well, Pat took her 3 boys and went with him, sailing on a merchant navy ship. It was the time of her life: She home-schooled her boys and spent the rest of her time sunning herself on the deck of the boat, playing card games with the sailors and generally acting as a mother/sister/pin-up girl for the rest of the crew on board -- sewing and knitting things for the men and their families and sharing tea and sympathy -- and nightly cocktail hours, of course -- with the men. She was the only woman on board and the men all loved her. When the ship docked, Pat and Hector and the boys sampled the cultures of all the continents of the world, visiting Africa and Asia when they were still mysterious and inaccessible to most travellers. There is a wonderful photo of Hector and Pat with Haile Salassie, the Lion of Judah, with a real live male lion lying at his feet.
When they returned to England and settled down to a more regular life, they carried the romance and adventure of those sailing days into their everyday life. Hector raised Pat's boys as though they were his own, and grieved with her when one of her sons died an untimely death. Every morning, Hector brought a tray with tea and toast and the newspaper to Pat in her bed and she read and did the crossword and then rose to take a bath and get on with her busy day of looking after him and their poodles and doing volunteer work in her small community in the South of England.
Pat was beautiful, funny, quick to laugh loudly, and she spoke with a delicious upper-crust accent, frequently taking pulls on her cigarette as she listened to you, nodding her head and saying "Quite, quiiite", every now and then, like some gorgeous character in a black-and-white movie. She always wore makeup and had long painted nails, and she was fit and ultra-competent and took care of everyone around her. I only spent a total of about a month with her in my life, but I loved her. She was the kind of woman I could only hope to be, brave and smart and generous and glamourous as hell.
My aunt Pat died suddenly on Saturday night. The cause of her death is shrouded in secrecy, but it appears to have been cancer.
Pat was married to my uncle Hector, my father's brother. When she was in her 30s, in the early 1960s, her first husband left her with 3 children. Although she was the daughter of a well-off family, she had to fend for herself and her boys, so she took some of her money and bought a boarding house, which she ran single-handedly for several years while raising her sons. Then she met my uncle, a divorced father of one and an officer in the merchant navy. They fell madly in love and married quickly, both of them swept off their feet by the intensity of their connection to one another. But what to do? Hector spent most of his time sailing around the world. How could they be together? Well, Pat took her 3 boys and went with him, sailing on a merchant navy ship. It was the time of her life: She home-schooled her boys and spent the rest of her time sunning herself on the deck of the boat, playing card games with the sailors and generally acting as a mother/sister/pin-up girl for the rest of the crew on board -- sewing and knitting things for the men and their families and sharing tea and sympathy -- and nightly cocktail hours, of course -- with the men. She was the only woman on board and the men all loved her. When the ship docked, Pat and Hector and the boys sampled the cultures of all the continents of the world, visiting Africa and Asia when they were still mysterious and inaccessible to most travellers. There is a wonderful photo of Hector and Pat with Haile Salassie, the Lion of Judah, with a real live male lion lying at his feet.
When they returned to England and settled down to a more regular life, they carried the romance and adventure of those sailing days into their everyday life. Hector raised Pat's boys as though they were his own, and grieved with her when one of her sons died an untimely death. Every morning, Hector brought a tray with tea and toast and the newspaper to Pat in her bed and she read and did the crossword and then rose to take a bath and get on with her busy day of looking after him and their poodles and doing volunteer work in her small community in the South of England.
Pat was beautiful, funny, quick to laugh loudly, and she spoke with a delicious upper-crust accent, frequently taking pulls on her cigarette as she listened to you, nodding her head and saying "Quite, quiiite", every now and then, like some gorgeous character in a black-and-white movie. She always wore makeup and had long painted nails, and she was fit and ultra-competent and took care of everyone around her. I only spent a total of about a month with her in my life, but I loved her. She was the kind of woman I could only hope to be, brave and smart and generous and glamourous as hell.
# posted by becca : 7:51 AM
