"Dresser" and "Chiffonier" - Together Again

Last Sunday, my late mother's elder sister, our beloved Aunt H, passed away of natural causes at the age of 95.  Fortunately, I was able to visit her this past summer in Montana on the week before her 95th birthday, taking with me Swiss chocolates (of course!) and a dozen red roses.  She proudly posed for a picture with her roses, looking much younger than her years.

During our visit, I found her as sharp and funny as ever, as keenly interested in the world as she had always been, but very much missing five of her younger sisters who had preceded her to the Great Beyond.  Only one of the original "Seven Sisters," Aunt E, remains with us now.  I was also able to visit her, together with her husband of 64 years, my Uncle P, and they also posed for me, although poor Uncle P was not quite sure exactly who I was.

Among our old family photos, I finally found one of all seven sisters together.  It was taken sometime in the 1930s in the yard of their family home in rural Montana, most likely before Aunt H first left to attend college in one of the "cities."  They literally look as if they are poised on the threshold of their lives, ready to embrace their separate destinies in due course.  Aunt H is at the upper left, next to my mother.  Aunt E is the impish-looking one on the left side of the front row.

Now, of course, we know how their stories played out: how all of them married and bore children, my cousins, and even how my cousins in their turn married - or didn't - and had children - or didn't - and how their children have since had children themselves - or not - and so it goes.  Aunt H especially LOVED the children!  Here she is, just this summer, surrounded by "greats," all of whom adored her and who had made the cake for her themselves.

Aunt H was a local celebrity, always a hit at gatherings, not simply those of our own family but also of her friends and their families because she could write the most clever poems to celebrate whatever occasion it happened to be.  She would recite them, as here, on the occasion of Aunt E and Uncle P's 60th wedding anniversary in 2008.

And here she is with two of her children, her eldest daughter and her youngest child, her only son.  Two daughters were unable to attend that gathering; another daughter had predeceased her.

Tiny, but with a sense of humanity and humor larger than life, she could light up the world around her.  I don't believe that I ever heard her utter a cross word.  Not only did she share full partnership at all the farm-related chores with her late husband, my Uncle J, including milking their cows manually, but she bore and raised five children.  After milking the cows, she would separate the milk from the cream in a separator.  As I recall, she even churned her own butter.  I only re-experienced something like her home-separated cream after I moved to Switzerland and tasted the wonderful double Gruyere.  All her bread was home-baked and her cinnamon rolls were legendary. With her Singer sewing machine, so ancient that it was operated by a treadle rather than electricity, she would generously "whip up" clothing for her daughters and her nieces.  Indeed, during my early years, the only non-hand-me-down clothing that I wore was courtesy of Aunt H's sewing skill.    

When she spoke at my late mother's Celebration of Life in 2002, she described how she and my mother, when they were very young, would pretend that they were in fact princesses.  They called themselves "Dresser" and "Chiffonier" after the two most elegant pieces of furniture in their small and very crowded home simply because they liked the names.  Equipped with whatever bits of finery they could concoct together, they would embark upon endless series of adventures - fitted in among their chores.

Now Dresser and Chiffonier are together again, rejoicing I am sure with all their loved ones who preceded them.  May this newest adventure be the most wonderful one of all!

But we who are left behind miss them all.  Very much.