This morning I got the sad news that my aunt Kathleen had died. She had been ailing for a couple of months. I last saw her at Christmas time while she was in the hospital and there was still hope for recovery. I am glad that I got to see her one last time at least.
Today I found myself engaging in what is now becoming too familiar a ritual. I called the airline, asked for a bereavement discount, was denied, and used my frequent flyer miles to get a ticket that wouldn't cost my eye teeth. I was a thousand miles short, so I had to spend $80 to get myself over the top. This comes with the territory when you're an internal exile. It doesn't help that my hometown lies 150 west of the nearest airport that I can get a direct flight to, so I will also be having to shell out for a rental car as well.
Despite these headaches I don't have any second thoughts about going. I spent more time with my aunt and her husband and daughter growing up than anyone else in my extended family. They were the only members of that large group (five siblings on each side) to live so close. Tightening the bond my aunt, who was my mom's sister, was married to my dad's brother. (Yes, my family is country. Got a problem with that?)
Many of the Nebraska Cornhuskers' most important 1980s football games were viewed in their living room accompanied by my aunt's delicious chili. I liked visiting her house because they had HBO and unlike my parents, were not opposed to getting takeout for dinner. I have fond memories of going to YMCA basketball practice across the street, then going to their place after before my dad picked me up. My aunt always had a snack to offer or a slice of pizza or taco leftover from the takeout dinner. Regardless of the reason, there was hardly a week that went by when I didn't see her.
I have been thinking about these memories all day today. Their power has been exacerbated by my feelings of exile. Here in New Jersey I live in a town full of Brooklyn refugees talking about gluten free options. I work at a private school in Manhattan that costs more money to attend in a year than I made until I was 33 years old. It's a million miles away from the cheap working class pleasures I used to enjoy so much with my aunt and uncle. I might as well be living in a different country.
This is the feeling I always get when I go back to Nebraska, where it's more and more common for people to treat me as an outsider when I tell them where I live and what I do. Around here in the Northeast my upbringing is a curiosity or an opportunity for someone to say something insulting to me about my background.
That bullshit always prompts me to take more pride in where I came from and cherish the people who raised me there. While I am grieving, I am least looking forward to seeing my family members again in one place. A lot of my cousins like me have left Nebraska and scattered to the four corners of the country. (Quite literally. I've got a cousin in Seattle and one on the Gulf Coast.) I know they'll at least get where I am coming from.
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