Remembering Aunt Miriam

My mother was the tenth of Robert and Miriam Franer's thirteen children, and the oldest of her siblings was their mother's namesake, Miriam Julia. My grandmother had a new baby every year, and so it was inevitable that the siblings grew up incredibly close, one another's best friends and defenders; and the older ones helped raise the younger ones. Together they celebrated milestones, mourned deaths, and stopped by one another's houses for no reason at all and usually without calling. I know my mom's door was always open, and there was cold pop (that's Coke or Pepsi for all you non-Midwesterners!) in the fridge for whoever was stopping by. There's no telling how many godchildren each of the siblings has. Their closeness and number ensured that their kids grew up with an experience that's becoming increasingly scarce in America--that of growing up in a village.

Miriam and her husband Jack lived a few miles away from our first home, with their two kids: Sam (Samuel), who was two years older than me, and Nancy, who was a year younger than me. My mom and her sisters would meet up often at one of their houses or another when we were little, and they'd all sit around the kitchen table while we cousins ran around. As a little girl who was at the table some of the time, I would enjoy the snacks, absorb as much of the adult conversation as I could, and snuggle my doll in imitation of the way Mom and Connie cared for their babies. It was during one of our visits at her house that she told her sisters she wanted to be known as the "beneficent aunt." If I had to guess the context, it was probably a child getting a treat that perhaps her mother didn't feel was warranted at the time.

A few of the Franer sisters on vacation in Florida in 1985, left-right: Miriam, Amy (my mom, pregnant with Anna), Liz, Ann, Connie, and my grumpy photo bomb.

I remember hiding behind the furniture in their living room, waiting to surprise my mom when she arrived from the hospital, accompanied by my aunt Maggie, with my new baby sister Anna.

When I say we vacationed together, I really do mean together--a single beach house might contain three or four siblings and their families. I have a memory of a bunch of us cousins in the loft of a beach house, and Miriam reading Nancy and me the Grimm's fairy tale Our Lady's Child at bedtime. No silly princess stories for us--it was life and death, good and evil!

My cousin Nancy and I grew up as close friends, and I slept over many times at the Flicks'. We had as much candy and snacks as we wanted, slept on air mattresses in the family room, watched scary movies, and ate Kraft macaroni and cheese at 10:00 at night. In the morning there was eggs and bacon, Cap'n Crunch, and pineapple orange juice. I remember Miriam always in a long button-down pinstripe shirt, bookish and serious, and listening to news radio in the kitchen as she worked. She said things like "cease and desist" when she wanted someone to knock it off. She would take us to Arby's, and she would go in through the church parking lot in order to avoid the Arby's intersection. Once she took Nancy and me to Joanne Fabrics when we were in our friendship bracelet-making stage, and bought us each a nice organizer that we filled with our choice of 30 rolls of embroidery floss. Life was grand!

Before we could Google things, if it couldn't be found in our old encyclopedia set, my mom would say, "Call Miriam and ask her." She probably knew.

Once, I believe it was while she was working toward her master's degree in education, she sat me down for battery of reading tests. She asked me to define reading, and she seemed inexplicably pleased by what I came up with: "It's looking at the words, and letting your eyes follow along." 

Nancy's and my Confirmation day in 1994, l-r: our cousin Sr. Marie Cecile (then Erin), Donna, Don (mom and Miriam's brother), my mom, me, my dad, Nancy, Miriam and Jack.

There was never any such thing as small talk with Miriam. Conversations were about big ideas, and every moment was a teachable one. Once, I accompanied the family on a trip to Chicago for a tour of Loyola University for Sam. I was brought along for Nancy, of course, and the two of us sat in the very back of their minivan giggling and eating Starbursts the whole way. The only thing better than sleeping over at the Flicks' was traveling with them. While we were out to dinner one night, the conversation turned political. I don't remember exactly what prompted me to say what I did, but I naively told her that I thought it would be fair if all wealth in the country was distributed equally to everyone. Who knows where I got that idea? No matter--whatever Communist leanings I might have had for five minutes, Miriam quickly set me straight. 

By the time I was a teen, my family had moved to the same neighborhood, so we saw a lot more of one another, naturally. Sometimes when there was tension at home or I was feeling misunderstood by my parents, I'd walk the half-mile or so to their house. Miriam would sympathize, but then help me understand that my parents had lot of stress in their life, with a big family and uncertainty with my dad's work. What a blessing it must have been to my parents to know that those times I stormed out of the house, I was with someone they could trust.

Another time, in a completely different sort of conversation, Miriam reassured me when I told her I don't feel like I get anything out of going to Mass; I just didn't feel anything when I was there. Miriam told me that she didn't feel things at church either, and that the absence or presence of feelings doesn't actually matter. We don't go to Mass because of whatever we feel we are "getting out of it." Of course she was not the only one to tell me this, but she had a way of putting it that maybe resonated more.

She was never again to play as prominent a role in my life as she did when I was growing up, but I never forgot everything she told me or the kindness she showed me. On Sunday, October 12, she passed away at 79, and was laid to rest the following Friday.

Ever since I got the news, I've been thinking about how being born into a family like the Franers is a form of abundance. It would take forever to list the gifts both tangible and intangible that I have received from my aunts, uncles and cousins, nearly all of whom still live in the Cincinnati area. The original village has split off into many new ones as the siblings' children have grown up and had their own families. When I visit mine, no matter how long it's been, I experience a unique feeling of belonging. My niece Elise once asked me, "How can you stand living so far away?" She was only maybe 6 at the time, and looking at me with her big brown eyes, it was like seeing her mother Grace completely unfiltered. I didn't even know how to answer. 

I pray for the repose of her soul and peace for her dear ones left behind; and I reflect with gratitude on how my life was immeasurably enriched by having an aunt like Miriam around when I was growing up.