Just last September, I wrote about the sudden and heartbreaking loss of my dear cousin, Cynthia, and as much as it pains me to type these words, I now find it necessary to record my thoughts of her mother, my Aunt Mardi, who joined our family members on heaven’s side of the divide last Sunday.
Five months isn’t long enough for a family to get through the grief of one, before grieving the loss of another. We know. Twenty-five years ago, we lost my mom, and five months later, my brother. I wish I could spare their family the heartache, but when a soul as grand as hers is lost from the world, hearts will ache for a long time to come.
This aunt of mine has a large family of her own; a posterity of accomplished, spiritual, smart people, and together she and my uncle have set an example for them of faith and the importance of enduring to the end with grace and bravery. And yet, even with all that responsibility, my Aunt Mardi always took the time to be a sister to my mother, and when she was gone, to be the best aunt she could be to me and my siblings.
I have countless memories of my mother, and some of the very best of them are moments she spent with her sister. Even though Mom lived on a farm in Idaho and Aunt Mardi lived in the city in California, those two sisters shared so much in common. They had supported each other through the loss of their father and their two sisters, and later, their step-father and their mother. They knew how to be there for each other. They spent hours on the phone, and that was when you had to pay by the minute for a long-distance call. When Aunt Mardi came to visit, it was a party. The two made crafts and cooked together and planned big dinners and sunny picnics. On one trip, there were three new movies people were talking about, and they figured out how to see all three in one day, which was a feat when there were only three theaters in Idaho Falls and each theater only showed one movie.
When I was nine or ten, Mardi’s family had come home to visit, and they were staying with Grandma Vernie in Shelley. Grandma Vernie’s house was really cool, but you had to mind your manners. She didn’t put up with any guff. She had a laundry chute in the hallway, and Cynthia, Alan, and I were sending toys down the chute and then running down to the basement laundry room to retrieve them to do it again, when Grandma put on the brakes, afraid that we would break something. So, Aunt Mardi took two pillows off the purple velvet bed in the back bedroom and sent them down the chute, and then she said, “Now you’ve got a soft landing for whatever you send down.” I don’t think Grandma was super happy about the velvet pillows being down there either, but she let us continue our shenanigans.
It was the same trip that I remember standing in Grandma’s hallway with Cynthia. Grandma’s doorknobs were glass, and we thought they looked like gigantic diamonds. We would slide our hands up the door until the knob was between our fingers so we could admire our diamond rings. Aunt Mardi laughed at us and asked us what we were doing. I told her, “I bet the doorknobs in the temple and in heaven must look just like this. They’re the prettiest doorknobs I’ve ever seen.” She just laughed and said that Grandma would probably appreciate the comparison, which I didn’t completely understand at the time.
Flash-forward a few years, and just before my wedding day, Aunt Mardi and Uncle Gerry arrived to help with the festivities. Mom was making last-minute alterations to my dress and Aunt Mardi insisted on taking photos of the mayhem. (The photo still sits on the shelf above my sewing machine.) And the next day at the temple, she caught me by the hand and asked me if I’d looked for the doorknobs. Even in my bridal haze, I remembered that day in Grandma’s hallway. She said to me, “It took you more than turning a glass doorknob to get you here today. I’m sure proud of the woman you’ve become, and I know your mom is, too.”
David and I moved to Utah, and I began working with the Jerusalem Center. We needed service couples to help with the administration of the building, and I suggested Mardi and Gerry. They interviewed and my boss said, “We need fifty of them!” My mom was so proud of her little sister, volunteering halfway around the world.
Just a few years later, I met my Aunt Mardi in the lobby of the Idaho Falls Hospital. My mother had fallen and required surgery. David and our little family came to be with her, and so did Aunt Mardi. She pointed out that our third child, Mallory, was turning one, and just because her grandma was in the hospital didn’t mean there couldn’t be a party. So, in the middle of the hospital trips, Aunt Mardi pulled off a one-year-old’s birthday party, complete with a pink dress and matching pink hat for the birthday girl. I worried that my mom would feel left out, but when Mallory modeled the new dress, I could see in Mom’s eyes that she was happy that if she couldn’t be there, she was grateful that her sister could stand in her place.
Only one month later, we gathered at my mother’s funeral, and there was Aunt Mardi, taking photos when no one else could think about such things, and telling me stories about my mom when writing her life sketch felt like an impossible task.
Since then, Aunt Mardi has been the keeper of the lasts for the Mallory sisters. She has been the one to carry on alone. For twenty-five years. And in those years, she has made phone calls, sent texts, sent birthday cards, and attended the weddings of my children, even though she had to travel far and wide to get to each. She even joined social media and regularly commented on the daily goings-on of our kids and grandkids.
When we hugged in September at Cynthia’s funeral, I refused to gasp at the frailty of her frame in my arms. She had been dealing with such difficult health issues that it seemed incomprehensible that she would also be required to endure the loss of her daughter. And still, her cares were all for everyone but herself.
I didn’t know Aunt Mardi had taken a turn for the worse. I sent her a silly photo of my mom sunbathing in her teens, pointing out that Mom had never let us wear two-piece suits at that age. I thought it would give Aunt Mardi a laugh. But one of her kids texted back to say she was in the ICU.
I didn’t get to give her any last messages to relay to my mom, or tell her how grateful I will always be to have an aunt such as her, but I’m hoping, so hoping, that when she finally got to heaven, that just for fun she remembered to look for the doorknobs, because my last message to her would have been, “It took more than turning a doorknob to get you into heaven, and you did it all. I am so proud of you and the life you have lived! I can only imagine the welcoming committee waiting on the other side for you.”
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