Being born in ’93, the 90’s and early 2000’s was my childhood. At this moment I’m feeling sentimental, and would do anything to get back to that simple time. To be that child, even though I still am. I feel her all the time.
I want to be back at my 3rd birthday party in Howard Beach, Queens, where my aunt lives. I am wearing a Cinderella dress and feel so jubilant. My Grandma Louise and Grandma Angela are there. I don’t know what it’s like to lose them, or even that being a possibility. I don’t know what it’s like to see them in the hospital, in hospice, in a casket.During my childhood, my family are all my best friends. I spend a lot of time with my Aunt Camille along with my cousin April. They love shopping and Target, and I love anything they love. My father owns a tea room restaurant at the time, and my aunt and cousin are always there to pick me up and take me away to do something more fun. They comb the iconic knots I have in my hair. (For some reason I am very negligent with brushing my hair for a period of time as a kid.) Being in the backseat of their car, listening to one early 2000’s CD or another is the most exciting and fulfilling thing to me. I love them so much and there is no one else I’d rather spend my time with.
My Aunt Donna (Camille’s twin) comes during the holidays, as this is when she moved to Florida. We call ourselves the Ya-Ya sisterhood so I’m assuming it’s 2002. I am 9. I look so forward to making the pillsbury cookies with the Christmas trees on them, and driving around Queens looking at Christmas lights. The big nutcrackers and the prevalent-at-the-time circular projector images on people’s garages and homes.
Two years ago this month we got the news that Camille’s lungs were in much worse condition than she ever let on. We were on a ski trip upstate, driving to the mountain one morning and get a call from my uncle Carmine, saying Camille is in the hospital and “It’s not good.” I am sitting in the backseat. My stepmom is talking to him and progressively getting more upset. I look at my dad and he is stoic. She has lung cancer, and it is advanced. Tears well up in my eyes from the backseat, I am watching my dad for a reaction. He is crying. The moment is horrendously surreal. I reach into my pocket frantically to get to my pill case so I can take a klonopin.
We have a brief back and forth about whether we should ski or not. There is nothing my dad hates more than not skiing. But even he agrees to turn around. We get back to our hotel room and all cry. My dad is standing in the doorway of the bathroom wailing. It is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. I try to comfort him and Cindy, but it all feels useless. I take more klonopin.
We try to distract ourselves for the rest of the weekend, go to dinner, do some shopping. It does help a little, in an odd way, to be up there. We all had massages scheduled for that day; I am crying into the pillow around my face. But it still feels good enough, and I’m grateful for it at the moment.
We head straight to Queens on the way home, my family is all at the house. My uncle hugs me and says “Your aunt loves you so much.” I really appreciate how he is trying to comfort us all when he has been going through hell. I pace the living room trying not to cry. The living room I’ve spent every Christmas Eve in since I was born. It feels wrong without her here.
I send her a desperate text saying I love her and am thinking of her. I don’t know if she can even see her phone, but I have to do something. I have to let her know how much she means to me.
It’s still covid times so I never get to visit her. My dad doesn’t either. He quickly gets his first vaccine shot so he can try to go see her, but before he can get his 2nd, she’s gone. March 5th is the day we got the news, and March 23rd, she dies of covid in the hospital. Covid she did not have when she came in.
My aunt Camille’s death was so representative of who she was as a person. She was always, always taking care of others. She was the connector in the family. She always had the latest news on everyone. She never wanted others to see her suffer, for fear of making them upset. So many people loved her, and all she wanted to do was protect them. But her keeping these things from us made her decline all the more shocking. The pain she never wanted us to feel came for us anyway.
On Christmas Eve 2020, she was in very bad shape. Her back was hurting her and she could barely stand or walk (most likely her lungs) and she was posted at a chair the whole night. Not her usual self of bopping around the kitchen and the table. I didn’t see the severity of it at the time. Probably denial, but also she was just so good at masking it. She looked like she was in pain, but still, she was always her sweet self. I was afraid to even go to the house in fear of specifically giving covid to my aunt. I didn’t have any symptoms, but everything was so uncertain and scary, at the drop of a hat everyone you know could have covid, and everyone was affected differently. I’m glad I did though, because it was the last time I saw her.
In July of 2020 my family drove out east to Montauk for a day. It’s cloudy so there isn’t much to do, we have a lot of down time. I remember sitting with her on a bench in the park right next to the lighthouse, while I read and she took a breather. We go to our favorite restaurant, Harvest. She drinks her usual white wine. We eat the best meal. It is the most lovely day. While at the dinner, I think to ask the waitress to take a photo of all of us. But I don’t. And I still regret it.
Her death shook up my family. I could have never expected the falling out that would occur. During the funeral we all felt so connected. We were trying to lean on each other to get through this. Now there are divides all over the place. Everyone blames each other for her death, for not reacting fast enough, for their pain. It’s all just misdirected pain. My aunt isn’t talking to my uncle, my cousin isn’t talking to my aunt. We spend less holidays together. I feel disconnected from my family. And that hurts even more. Because the absolute last thing Camille would’ve wanted is for us to all be torn apart. All she wanted was for her family to be together. But who else would’ve brought this reaction about but her. She was so important to so many, a lifeline, a confidant, a friend. My aunt. The explosion of emotions her death brought about shouldn’t actually be surprising. Because she is one of the most special, selfless, loving women I will ever know.
It is really depressing to watch the people you love fall apart. I will spend my whole life trying to figure out how to deal with it. And I probably never will.
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