Aunt Kitty

We were lucky enough to have a very interesting role model - Aunt Kitty. Mom's brother's wife. We didn't know her well even tho they lived in the same town in Maryland we did - Uncle Ed was older than Mom and they weren't close. He had played football for the Redskins and owned a car dealership afterward. They were more glamorous than we were, by far. They had two sons and one daughter - we share the same name,  she's younger than me but attended the same grade school. Aunt Kitty would pick her up in, seriously, a different, brand new Buick convertible every week (or so it seemed). We walked or rode bikes.  The few times we were invited to their home it seemed so fancy. We heard Kitty got up early to put on 'her face' before Ed woke up. Her makeup and hair were always just so. She'd been a hat model pre marriage and, funnily enough, often wore a hat. Uncle Ed passed away from cancer - he was a handsome man and refused the treatment because it would have ruined his face somewhat - that was years ago. In about 2005 two of my sisters and I returned to Maryland for a reunion of our grade school. We made plans to have lunch with Aunt Kitty at her country club - a very chic one in the DC area. She was still an imposing woman - ramrod posture, hair done and impeccable manners. We learned more about her, as adults. For example she loved to sew. I had never pictured this, but she took us to her home (a new one in Kensington) after lunch and said she'd made all the curtains. She had boxes and boxes of hats in the basement. Oil paintings of her and her daughter - so they were still quite different from us!! But she was gracious and fun and had several sayings that I heard that day : "Oh really" (with a smile and arched eyebrow);  "well now what do you think?" ( not answering a question);  "you sillyhead" (shrug and closed smile); " I have no idea" (deflecting); "wonderful,wonderful"; "yes darling"; "oh forever",  " call me" or "bye bye"(quickly, crisply yet in a sing song voice); "he was a rascal" (describing our cousin's first husband). She was thrilled we were 'lovely and pencil thin'. And had enough manners to lunch at the club and keep up the conversation, I'm sure.
She's now gone but sometimes I think of her - I think she made her own reality and enjoyed her life on her own terms. Ed was a rascal, big time, but she found her own way to deal with it and stay happy. She was a good mother and eventually moved to Charlottesville to be nearer my cousin, near the end of her life. She would organize and moderate fashion shows in her retirement home.
bye bye,
La