Dear Friends,
In your kindness, please pray for the repose of the soul of my dear aunt, Oresta, who died at her seniors' home yesterday around eight o'clock well into her nineties.
She never had children and so when I was still a baby, she'd dress me up and take me in my stroller into town just so people could have a look at what a gorgeously beautiful baby she had - and congratulate her for it.
Sometimes she would correct the people to say she was not my mother - but other times she did not.
During the Nazi terror in her homeland, she had a Jewish girlfriend. Once, the SS came by searching for Jews. She took her girlfriend to her bedroom and they both pretended to be asleep together.
When the SS asked about them, her mother said that that was her "little sister" and that they liked taking naps together.
That saved the little girl's life.
And my aunt once "adopted" a seminarian of the RC Oblate Order and sent him money for his studies. He used to correspond with her until his graduation and ordination (don't know whether he did later).
I read one of his letters to her and in it he talked about the massive workload he had in seminary and listed, I believe, ten subjects he was taking all at the same time.
And she once had a little cocker spaniel dog named "Rex" whom she nursed to health as a sickly puppy.
When Rex died, she cried as if her own child had passed away. Indeed, I'm sure that for her it was exactly like that.
When my first dog, Azor, died, I was so grief-stricken. She came to me to console me and said, "Listen, get your parents to buy you and your brother TWO new dogs - that way you can both have your own!" Somehow, that statement made it all seem a bit better.
She was also there for me when I began to date girls and she told me things that no mother or grandmother ever could. (She would brush my palms with cologne and also behind my ears - "This is if the girl you are dancing with wants to lean her head on your shoulder!"
).
I saw her last two weeks ago and brought her her favourite chocolates. She recognized me from afar and when I gave her the chocolates I suggested she could share them with her friends around her.
At this, she smiled mischievously and whispered, "I'm not sharing this with anyone!"
I kissed her on her cheek and her hand, wished her well and left.
With the Saints give rest, O Lord, to Thy servant, Oresta!
Alex
