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September 19, 2005

Goodbye Jo

Today is the memorial service for my Aunt Jo, who died on Aug. 24. She was cremated and her ashes will be buried next to her husband, who died in August 1977, when I was barely a year old. I am at work, 500 miles away, because the passing of an extended family member doesn’t qualify for a grievance absence and I don’t have any vacation days left.

She was sick for too long, so her death, while not welcome, was expected. Still, as my mom said, it’s weird to think that she is no longer on Earth with us – breathing the same air, seeing the same sky. My grandmother, as one could imagine, is having a terrible time. This is the third child she will bury and that is three times too many for any mother to bear.

Jo was my mom’s older sister, nine years her senior (the gap between numbers five and six large enough for my mom and her younger sister to be raised almost as a second family), and the stories around Jo have always been slightly mythical in their proportion. She was a great beauty, well traveled and a successful, shrewd businesswoman. Her not-yet-husband went off to Korea knowing she would be his bride when he returned, though she didn’t even know it herself. Since his early death, my entire life, I have heard about how much my uncle loved Jo – worshipped her, idolized her, adored her – and a small part of me has always searched for that kind of love. But I never told Jo that. I never told her how incredible I thought she was, or how brave. The way she attacked her cancer – quietly, knowingly, with silent strength – was inspiring. She was diagnosed when she was only 59 and was given a mere six months to live. She beat that diagnosis by more than 12 years.

With so many nieces and nephews I know that I wasn’t any more special or unique to her than they were, but I like to think that maybe I was. My aunt Wanda would often stroke my blonde ponytail and comment on how I had hair like Jo’s, how often she would catch a glimpse of me and forget that she hadn’t gone back in time. When I want to get off the phone with my mom, because I hate unnecessary phone chatter, she will sigh and say that I am “just like Jo” in that regard. When I went to Savannah for the first time this summer, my mom told me that Jo had said that I had to see the city through her eyes, as it was her favorite place in the world. I tried to remember that when I was there – as I walked the many squares and dodged the rain running down Bull St., as I sampled pralines at River Street Sweets – that I was there for more than just myself. And now, I’ll always try to remember that.

Goodbye Jo – you will be greatly missed.

Posted by hannah at 03:19 PM