My great aunts helped raise me, and my kids have formed a special bond with them. The benefits of their intergenerational relationship go both ways.
Courtesy Nicole Johnson
When I was a kid, my aunts were the coolest. Auntie Pauline lived in a ranch house with a pool in Long Island, New York. Her husband, Sy, was the kindest of all my uncles and would stick up for me when my brother and cousin, who were three years older than I was, made fun of me. Pauline's daughter would become and remain one of my closest friends.
Auntie Joanne drove a Chevy Vega hatchback and was the first in the family to go to college. She was a teacher who lived within walking distance. She always made time for me and my brother.
After my brother and I went to live with our grandparents in Everett, MA, my aunts became a constant. When my mother died, it tied us together even more tightly. Of course, I was a generation removed because all my aunts were great-aunts. Though the age divide was great, it never stopped us from creating a unique bond.
My aunts helped my grandparents raise me. My Auntie Joanne took me to doctor's appointments, and Auntie Pauline had me over for Thanksgiving when I was in college in New York. I couldn't return home so she made a turkey and we celebrated together. After Auntie Joanne had her son, I became his unofficial nanny, accompanying them on vacations.
When my first marriage ended, I received little support from my brother and grandparents, who could not understand why I would divorce a man they loved. Auntie Pauline called me and left a message on my answering machine. "Nicole," she said, "I don't know what happened, but I wanted to say you are my niece. I love you, and I am on your side." It remains one of the kindest and most loyal things anyone has ever told me.
When my children came along, my aunts loved them fiercely. Auntie Joanne came for a week after the birth of my fourth child because my grandmother, who had come with my first three children, was battling ovarian cancer. Auntie Pauline made treats for my kids and purchased gifts for all the major milestones.
When my daughter was struggling during middle school, my Auntie Joanne took her for a girls' weekend, providing her a reprieve from the horrors of being 12. Both of them have taken my kids to the zoo and the mall, and they drive close to two hours to attend our family Christmas parties, a tradition I made my own after my grandparents died and our family Christmases changed.
My aunts fostered relationships with my children that allowed my kids to remain close to my side of the family. Through these women, my kids learned about family traditions and heard stories about my life before them. My grandparents died in 2013, and by the time my youngest kids were old enough to remember things, the size of the family had decreased significantly.
This weekend, we are headed to Boston to celebrate my Auntie Pauline's 90th birthday. When I told my 11-year-old son I was making the trip alone, he told me he had to go. He refused to miss seeing her on such an important day.
Throughout every event in my life — and now in my children's lives, too — the aunts, as we've come to refer to them, have been there. Despite the generational differences, they have remained a constant in our lives. They have taught us lessons, made us laugh, and pulled all of us through some of the most challenging times. It is impossible to remember every fun thing and every milestone moment we've celebrated with our great aunts. Without them, a part of my history, and my children's, would not have existed.
