This is the post I should have written so long ago. This is the post about the most beautiful women in the world. I’m not exaggerating when I say my two aunts are the biggest influences in my life. And they probably don’t know that because I have done such an awful job of communicating that.
I have flown without a net since I was 14 years old. That is when my mama died. Like a bolt of lightning she was here and then she was gone. I think I was in shock for 20 years. How could she be gone? I could not comprehend. I lost myself in a sea of chaos and stupidity, anything to make the days go faster, anything to make the time fly so I didn’t have to think about my life as a motherless daughter.
Always standing there in the wings were my aunts, my mother’s two sisters. When my mom was alive the three of them were super close. Not more than a few days would go by when I wouldn’t see at least one or both of them. My one aunt lived around the corner; my other lived less than a half-hour away.
My mother died after a very brief bout with cancer: the doctors thought it was pneumonia at first and by the time they figured it out it was too late.
The days after my mother’s death were a blur. To be honest, the years after my mother’s death were a blur. I don’t remember a lot of it. But I do remember whenever I needed someone, my aunts and uncles were there. They had lives of their own, kids of their own. But their arms were always wide open. Often times I would spurn them; no matter what, they were there and that meant the world.
I usually didn’t take their help. I was stubborn and determined to figure it out without them. They weren’t my mom, after all. And if my mom couldn’t be there for me, then nobody could.
And yet, whenever I would turn, they would be there.
I think it was at my college graduation. I was the first woman in my family to graduate college. After the ceremony, one of my aunts hugged me and told me how proud she was. And I will never forget her words: “You had every reason to fail. Every reason to go down the wrong path, and you didn’t. I am so proud of you.”
When I set along my path, I’m not sure who I was looking to make proud. But I knew I wanted to make someone proud and I knew I could do it. So I did. And there are no two people who tell me more how proud they are of me.
Over the years. I have had more than my share of moments I am not proud of. I have had more than my share of moments where I felt so alone. My aunts have been there if I needed them and asked for them. But I wanted my mama and there is no substitute for a mama. I know this now that I am a mama. You only have one birth mother. And as much as I wanted to fill the void, as wide as my aunts’ arms were open, I just couldn’t. My children are a piece of my heart. When it comes down to it, the relationship between a mother and her children can never be replicated. You can form different, meaningful relationships with loved ones. But they will never be like the bond between mother and child.
That doesn’t mean I don’t adore my aunts. They have been there for me as much as I let them. They were there both times I gave birth. They supported me at Both my weddings. They comforted me when I discovered my kids’ autism diagnosis, and then when I divorced. I am with them for holidays. My kids adore them. They have celebrated every birthday, every milestone.
It’s only in recent years that I have realized how incredibly lucky I am to have them in my life. Plenty of people have lost their mother and have had no one even attempt to fill the void. Not me. I have had the wonderful example of two beautiful women who have taken a huge crater inside me and made it feel so much smaller.
I am not a phone person. I don’t have he time or patience for small talk. My communications with my aunts are mostly through text.
But this week I was blessed to have phone conversations with both my aunts that weren’t rushed. Both times I got off the phone thinking how blessed I was, how much I love them. How empty my life would have been without them.
This Mother’s Day, I will do what I usually do to get by: focus on my kids and my lucky role as their mother. But I couldn’t let another Mother’s Day go by without honoring the two women who have been my role models, my guiding light.
Love you both. So much. Thank you. 
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