I was at lunch yesterday with my friend, telling her about the situation with my aunt. I told my friend that when I was little, I was obsessed with my aunt. Ultimately, my aunt is the reason that I love baking because she was the person who spent quality time in the kitchen with me. She’s the person who always proactively asked me about what I was learning in school, what I was interested in, and actually wanted to know me for me. Although my aunt is genuinely a good person and always had been, I know part of her love and interest for me was because she looked at me as the daughter she never had. She had three sons when each time, she really wanted a daughter. So I got all the cute hand sewn dresses and hand knit clothes she intended for her own. I got showered with endless girly gifts and jewelry that she would have loved for her own daughter. But once I got older, and once she came back from being away in Boston for a number of years, she was almost a different person. She officially converted to being a Jehovah’s Witness. Her main concern was the congregation and her “brothers and sisters.” And since at that time, I was a pre-teen/teen, I was changing a lot, too. At that point, I was finally seeing with greater clarity all the dysfunction in my family with eyes wide open. I also realized that at this point, she rarely wanted to acknowledge anything that was ever wrong. I could never have a deep conversation with her. Maybe it was always the case that this was impossible, but when I was in elementary school, that never would have even entered my mind given I was so young and immature. But it always made me sad that we could never have a real conversation together. It was impossible and still is impossible for us to have any meaningfully deep conversation about anything. I don’t know if she is incapable of it or if she just actively avoids it. I guess I will never know; it will always remain a mystery to me.

I told my friend all this. She paused for a while and then looked up at me and said, “Wow. Do you think that some of this frustration is because you never really allowed yourself to mourn the version of her you loved that is gone?”

I didn’t know what to say to this. I suppose I never looked at it this way. It makes sense my friend would hear it this way since she’s a deeply feeling and empathetic person. I guess my friend is partly right: my aunt and I will never have that sweet, simple relationship we had when I was a toddler, kindergartener, or elementary school-age child, where it was easy and always just about baking, having fun shopping and doing playground outings, or enjoying treats together. But as I mentioned here earlier, I am not sure she was ever capable of having a deeper, meaningful relationship with me. So this second part is not a “loss” per se, but more something I wished we could have had that we just never did and never will have.

It reminded me of what my therapist said to me when I was pregnant and due to give birth any day. She told me that I should give myself the time, permission, and grace to mourn the relationship with my mom and dad I wish I could have had, but never got to have and never will have. It’s the same with my aunt: I do wish we had a different, better, and deeper relationship than what we have now. But this will never be. And we just have to work with what we have because c’est la vie.