My family recently said goodbye to our 92-year-old Aunt Mary. She had a profound impact on me, and also on my wife and children. I hope that every family in the world has at least one Aunt Mary.
On the surface she seemed quite ordinary. She had four children and she was a nurse. She did not win any national awards and she lived a middle-class lifestyle. What was so special about this person?
It is said that people don't care what you know until they know that you care. Aunt Mary had a particular way of making each person feel special. She had an effervescent personality and a strong New Jersey accent. I always remember her saying, "How are ya? Good to see ya, hun!" When I talked with her, she would look right at me and say, "Yah, yah, yah."
Today we call this being mindful. She had the ability to be fully present in the moment, and fully present for each person. I imagine that this served very well in her work as a nurse. People simply heal better when they know that someone cares.
How did Aunt Mary get this way? She was born in Paterson, New Jersey to poor Syrian refugees who had eight children and lost everything in the Great Depression. She went on to become possibly the first Syrian-American registered nurse. Then, at the age of 57, she returned to school to earn a university degree.
Aunt Mary had a wonderful family of her own, three boys and one girl, all of whom went on to earn advanced degrees in university. Beneath the surface, however, her family life also had its challenges, especially when she lost her youngest son to the AIDS virus. Still, nothing could extinguish her peace.
Part of Aunt Mary's secret was her outgoing personality, but personality only gets us so far in life. We need to develop depth of character to withstand all the challenges that life throws our way. We need to be able to embrace every moment, to be fully present, to respond effectively rather than to react with raw emotion. We need to have the confidence to know that in the end, all will be well, regardless of how the situation may look at the present moment.
As unpopular as it may be to say this in our largely agnostic western world, Aunt Mary's strength clearly came from a deep and profound faith. She had a very beautiful and loving relationship with her God that she reflected onto everyone whom she met. In studying her biography one can see that she dedicated a great deal of her time and energy to her Catholic religion. She loved going to daily mass and bringing communion to the sick. She loved to pray the rosary. Her devotion to prayer likely explains her mindfulness, for this is a quality of mystics in any religion.
Aunt Mary was very proud of who she was and where she was from. She smiled as she declared that her husband was in the same Paterson Eastside High School graduating class as Larry Doby, the first African-American to play baseball in the American League (Jackie Robinson was the first to play in the National League).
I never heard Aunt Mary judge anyone, regardless of who they were, where they were from, what religion they followed or didn't follow, or the choices they made in life. She could see and celebrate the good that exists in everyone.
I will always have happy memories when I think of my dear Aunt Mary, and thoughts of her will always remind me of what is really most important in life. Embrace each moment, embrace faith, embrace family, and make each person you meet feel like the most important person in the world, because in the eyes of God, that is what they are.
