How to be a cool aunt

My friend Porter from San Francisco is in town and she had organized a fun dinner at Buddakan last night. I was returning home from a very New York City type of evening when I got an email from my cousin Sharon in Michigan about my Aunt Ruth who had just gone into the hospital. My aunt has cancer, and she's been battling it for a while, not that you would know it to speak to her.

Growing up, our two families spent a lot of time together - holidays, weekend get-togethers and visits to my aunt and uncle's beautiful barnwood house on cliff that overlooked Lake Michigan. I can remember the path we all took to travel down to the beach, and the spectacular sunsets viewed from the second floor when the sun would slip past the tree tops to the ocean-like lake, and then past the horizon.

The last decade or so, especially after my uncle and my mother, her younger sister, passed away my aunt and I grew much closer - and became very good friends. She and my cousins Sharon and Kay traveled from Michigan to visit me in New York, San Francisco and Southern California, often joking that I needed to keep moving so they'd have a new place to visit!

My aunt was one of the primary reasons I started this blog - so she could see and hear day to day experience about life in New York. I looked at an email she sent me last July entitled "Wow. Good for You!": "...I am surprised about your returning to New York. I thought about it when you got your new job. I knew how much you loved the California weather and ocean. but......... I THINK THIS FEELS RIGHT for you! You've been thinking about moving away from San Clemente and it just wasn't working for you. THIS IS GOOD...."

I had emailed her an update from Christmas, how Santa brought a new computer to my nieces Katy and Ellie and how they were very excited to email and skype, many times a day-- Ellie's especially being the back and forth of a spirited 7 year old: "Hi Aunt Laura, I love you MORE. xoxoxo Ellie". Aunt Ruth had replied to me: "Just imagine the kids having computers. I was just thinking that I was 75 years old when I got my first computer."

My Aunt Ruth, 80 something years young, has been a very engaged subscriber to "Back to the Future" since I started writing, often sending me notes saying how much she enjoys it. For Christmas she sent me Julie & Julia, the charming movie about the woman who created a blog as she cooked her way thru Julia Child's cookbook.

As I just hung up from speaking with her in the hospital, I am not sure if she will be reading my posts on her own computer but do expect my cousin will likely print them out and read them to her. Even now, as she told me to have fun today, my Aunt Ruth continues to teach me about having light, joyful heart, and especially how to be a cool aunt.