Silence

I started this post on December 5th, the morning my Aunt LuJean died. I wrote only a few words and then got caught up in my thoughts about her life and her passing.

The day before she died was her 67th birthday, and though she was unconscious throughout the day, she was surrounded by family: her children Butch, Michelle, and Kim, and her brothers Jerry and Allen. I had a ticket to Kansas in my hand. I was heading there later that week to see her; instead, it got me back in time for her funeral.

I feel fortunate that I was in Kansas for Grandma Mary's 80th birthday in November and made a three hour drive to see LuJean. I was able to talk to her on one of her last good days.

I was also there visiting her in August, less than two months after cancer had been found in her lungs and brain. She had moved back to Kansas from Maui, and her condition had degraded rapidly. Only a few months before she had climbed to the top of Diamond Head with my dad during his first visit to Hawaii. She was as active then as ever, though complaining of being "a little short of breath."

LuJean smoked for many, many years, and I remember Kim wanting her to stop even when we were children. My own mother smoked back then, as did my maternal grandparents. My grandmother stopped after a bout with pneumonia, my grandfather followed suit. I can't remember why Mom did but I'm glad whatever the reason.

YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY, and a voicemail from my cousin Kim reminded me of my 40th birthday two years earlier. Friends and family joined me for the celebration in San Francisco. LuJean came, as did my mother, father, his girlfriend Connie, my sister Molly, and Kim.

We had a dinner before my party, and afterward they joined my friends and me at one of the larger gay clubs in town. My friend Marc bonded with LuJean and easily persuaded her to join him in dancing on stage in front of the crowd of hundreds of shirtless men.

LuJean also came to my gay wedding back in 1994. Her mother--my paternal grandmother--did as well, along with my parents, sister, and Kim. Yes, the same crowd as at my birthday, though without Granny Jean who died in 2006.

AS I SAT AT THE FUNERAL, I realized that LuJean was the first of my relatives who made that transition from simply being a relative to being a real person, someone who appreciated me for who I was. Growing up in a big extended family as I did, there were usually people around. The kids my age and younger were relatively easy to understand and connect with; those older and the adults a bit more mysterious and intimidating. And to varying degrees we carry those childhood impressions of people with us throughout life.

But in 1996 when I was at my cousin Cindy's wedding in Denver, I spent some time alone with LuJean, including an hour in the smoking lounge at the Denver airport. Looking back, it seems that it was that weekend when I realized that LuJean viewed me as an individual, not as a nephew. And likewise, for me she had crossed that magical line from being one you love because of family ties to one you simply love. She was the first of my adult relatives to make that crossing.

Ten years later, LuJean and I spent a night sleeping in Granny's hospice room: LuJean on a squeaky cot, me in a recliner. I woke up several times and listened carefully to make sure I could hear both of them breathing.

There is silence now. But silence gives way to something else which is reflection, and remembrance. It gives space to know where I came from and what I learned from the people who shaped me.

And in the silence I can hear their voices. I can hear LuJean's laughter. And as I write this I realized that I can hear her in my own laughter.

LuJean (with red hair), my Granny Jean, my uncles Jerry and Phil standing, and my dad Allen, all at the celebration of my grandma's 90th birthday in 2005.

THIS WAS READ at LuJean's funeral:

From the beginning her parents knew they had their hands full. LuJean started walking at 8 months, and her mom always said if she could put her toe in it, she could climb it. She was found anywhere from sitting on the table at 9 months old—eating out of a sugar bowl—to the top of the refrigerator. Her tenaciousness and spunk were evident throughout her life.

LuJean grew up with 4 brothers in rural Kansas, the child of post-Depression era parents, and enjoyed what some nowadays would say was an unconventional lifestyle. The family lived in a renovated railroad box car on the outside of town. Her dad built a lean-to along one side of the home for the bedrooms. There was no indoor plumbing and the toilet paper brand was Montgomery Ward… single ply. Her fear of birds started early after watching her mom ring the necks of the chickens destined for the family table. She claimed they chased her around on several occasions…
headless.

Once their dad had shot a steer and had it strung up in the tree to be butchered. The steer lifted it’s head and mooed at the whole family standing around watching… LuJean said her mother about fainted and that you’d never seen kids disappear so fast.

The family bond carried on through out her life. That’s one thing you knew that came first with LuJean. She always loved attending the Thanksgiving gathering at the Methodist Church in Burrton—which sometimes brought 60 extended family members (food for 300)—or the Giggy family reunions held every other summer (usually the hottest weekend of the summer). And with 10 aunts and uncles, 27 cousins, 12 nieces and nephews, 4 brothers, 3 children and 5 grandsons there were an awful lot of weddings, graduations and birthday parties to attend as well.

In general, as a family, we have all been very blessed. Our family truly knows how to have a great time doing pretty much anything and LuJean has been the main character in many great stories. Everyone was always happy to see her show up: she brought great energy and a big smile to every occasion.

Hard work was second nature to her. She was a single mom before that was common. Her kids had everything they could ever need and more and were extremely fortunate to live in beautiful homes, take awesome family vacations, and have pets including horses. She had a knack of giving the family pets odd names. At one time Kim’s friends were convinced she practiced witchcraft after she named the dog Satan and the cat Pyewacket.

One day some boys from the Jehovah Witnesses stopped by to worship. After LuJean let them know, very courteously, that she was not interested in their church, her dog got out. While the boys were walking to their car LuJean was in the yard yelling “Satan, get in the house! Satan get in here!”

Her hard work was incredibly apparent in her career with United Airlines. She started in 1976 as a reservations agent and later worked for Great Lakes Naval Base writing and negotiating government contracts for the Navy. She was a service director at O’Hare International Airport, which she called “the circus or O’Scare,” and then moved to Hawaii and retired from the Maui airport. When she had days off, she was home cooking, cleaning, wall papering, roto-tilling a garden, laying carpet, putting up her own pool, or completely designing and building an addition to her
home. She can use any tool better than most men and had more energy than an 8 year old. If she wasn’t busy doing something then she was wasting time. When she was taking time for herself she was engrossed in a book (that normally took her about 3 days to read), often lying in the yard in her orange bikini, slathered in homemade suntan oil and working on her beautiful tan.

We’re sure she’s busy doing something now. If the angels aren’t square dancing, it’s definitely in the works. We do know that everyone’s a little happier in heaven and a little sadder here on earth.