My
aunt, Maud Ann Sullivan passed away last week. She wasn’t famous, or a
celebrity. Technically, she wasn’t even my aunt. She was my late uncle’s
longtime companion, and though they loved each other deeply, they never
married.
It
didn’t matter. Maud Ann has been an
integral part of my life as long as I can remember, and I feel privileged to
count her as family. I am lucky that for some reason she felt the same way.
Maud
Ann was a role model to me. A single career woman long before that was the norm,
she worked her way up from a telephone operator to managing and supervising a
large staff. Many of her former staff stayed close to until her death.
She was that kind of a lady.
And
make no mistake about it, Maud Ann was a lady. I never saw her less than perfectly coiffed and made-up. She rarely cursed and when she
did it was with vehemence and usually saved for a Republican. The Presidents
Bush were each always referred to as “that damned man.”
But
she was a lady in a Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey-kind of way. She also had strong opinions and a
wicked sense of humor and was not afraid to share them. She never, ever
suffered fools gladly. If she’d been a Southern lady, her favorite expression
would have been “bless their heart.”
Maud Ann never
called herself a feminist, but she most certainly was one. She assumed that one
did what one had to do and went on with it regardless of your sex. That meant
if you had to work, you worked. And as a working woman, the ERA was just common
sense and the people who objected were boneheads. Bless their hearts.
She adored Hilary
Clinton for her successes, abilities and toughness. It breaks my heart that
Maud Ann didn’t live long enough to see our first serious woman presidential
candidate go the distance. (We don’t even want to discuss what she thought of
Sarah Palin.)
Maud
Ann never treated me like a stupid little kid, though certainly when I first
met her, I was. She asked me my opinions, and listened thoughtfully when I
pontificated about them. She also argued with me when I was wrong.
A
life-long liberal, she helped shape my political views and moral center. She
loved this country as much as she loved her family, and despaired the rise of
the loud-mouth, right wing and Tea Party.
She was deeply, personally offended by Donald Trump and his ilk.
“I
worry about the future of this country,” she told me recently when we spoke of
gun violence and the rise of the lunatic right-wing. “We’ve been through this before.”
Indeed.
She was a child of both the Depression and was shaped by the horrors of World
War II, and took the phrase “Those who don’t learn from the past are destined
to repeat it.”
She
was kind and thoughtful beyond belief, and never forgot a birthday, anniversary
or holiday, sending cards for all occasions. Those notes went to everyone she
loved, and some who just happened part of her extended and adopted family). She
accepted all of the Liveten family (including a few who probably didn’t deserve
the honor) as part of her family, as we did her.
That
meant that whether she wanted to or not, she attended all of my graduations,
our family bar mitzvahs, weddings and reunions. While I bitch and moan about
going to those events, Maud Ann just smiled and showed up. She might make a few
sly comments when we spoke later, but at the time, when it counted she was always
completely charming.
After
I’d been in California a few years, she and my mother came out to visit and we
drove to Death Valley. I was not at my best and poor Maud Ann was treated to a
week of mom and I, kvetching at one another in the middle of a desert where
there was no real escape. To her great credit Maud Ann never told me to shut up
and behave, though she must have wanted to. Desperately. I shudder when I think
back at that week.
Maud Ann was a devoted Catholic, though she
didn’t turn a blind eye to the Church’s failures. After the priest abuses came
to light, she who had donated money to the Archbishop’s fund her entire life,
wrote a stern answer to a fundraising request explaining why she would no
longer be giving money to the church and instead, donating directly to the
charities. A lot of people might say that, Maud Ann actually followed through.
Her faith helped her through all the
challenges in her life. She was a young
woman when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a radical
mastectomy. She never discussed it with
me, or complained. She later told me
that she didn’t want to worry me. And that was that.
Even
recently, when she was ill with kidney disease, she never complained to me. I’d
be on the phone – we spoke almost every week- whining about a cold or a sniffle
or something equally ridiculous, and she’d lend a sympathetic ear. But if I
asked about her declining health, she’d change the subject. Or dismiss it.
My
mom, who is not in the best of health, is staying with me this winter, which
Maud Ann thought was a terrific idea. Unfortunately that means neither of us
could attend Maud Ann’s funeral.
A friend told me
that she always liked Maud Ann the best of my extended family. My friend was
right, she was. I miss her desperately and I always will.
