Aunty M

So my Aunt Marion died a while ago. I don't know when because my cousin Nicole sent me a condolence email but that was the first I had heard of it. Think my mum was saving that prize for the airport because it's difficult telling someone abroad that someone else is dead when they don't have any support around them.

My Aunt Marion is my grandmother's sister on my mum's side. She's technically my Great Aunt and so I'd always underline the word great in all her birthday and Christmas cards. She was quite a bit younger than my granny and had more of an edge. She liked to make sarcastic jokes and would laugh a lot. Her last pair of dentures were too big for her, which made her mouth look too small when she offered her toothy grin.

Aunt Marion never married. But there were always two men named Gordon around. One of them had shacked up with a woman, but I was always convinced he liked Aunt Marion better because I'm sure she was more fun.

When my mum was a kid Aunt Marion would visit for the weekend. My mum and her sisters would wait for Aunt Marion to wake up outside her bedroom door. They usually had to wait until 11, cos Aunty M liked her rest. Then they'd watch her put on make-up and sometimes make them up too. She had dentures at a fairly young age so the three sisters would always try and catch a glimpse of a toothless Aunt Marion. But she was too smart for them and never let them see.

When I was a kid, Aunt Marion would pick me up from the airport in Regina and we'd drive (mostly on cruise control) to Stewart Valley (population 45) to visit my grandma and grandpa. Those drives were my favourite because we'd talk about boys I had crushes on and my family. Saskatchewan has a family feel I can't explain. I always felt that I came from such a complicated family and in Saskatchewan, it felt, well, normal.

We'd get to my grandma's house and play lots of cards. Grandma would usually have a rhubarb pie in the oven and my grandpa would be sitting in the other room with his head phones watching TV or reading Cowboy novels.

One day us girls were siting around the kitchen table. I must have been about 12. I had a great idea and decided to teach my grandma (Freida) and Aunt Marion a game I learned at school called Pig.

I can't remember all the details of the game, but if you won you had to touch your nose with your finger and the last one to touch their nose was out. After only one or two rounds of watching old ladies trying touching the middle of their noses with their fingers, I couldn't control myself. I laughed so hard that I farted (or as my mum would say, fluffed) really loud and then peed all over the chair. I was so embarressed because 12 year old seemed too old to be making those noises and peeing in my purple jogging pants.

But when I came out with my dashing blue pair, they had cleaned it all up and we pretended it had never happened. We must have played rumy after that. Much safer.

When I was going through a difficult time once, she called me up. I think she could tell it was bad cos she started crying on the phone.

Of course when I got older, Saskatchewan was never top priority. "Next year," I'd think. I told my mum over the phone a few weeks ago after Aunt Marion had a fall that I'd like to go visit her in the nursing home when I get back. And she said she'd come with me. Now there is no family left in Saskatchewan on my mum's side. I guess I could go back to Stewart Valley and find a spot on a farm I used to sit at when I stole my grandma's cigarettes that I helped her roll and watch the sunset.