My mother was one of 4 sisters. Aunt "Kiki" was the youngest, also the beauty and the rebel. -- Kiki is actually a baby name I gave to a certain female body part (I won't say which one) as a small child. This particular aunt had quite a reputation. She was stunning in her blonde beehive hairdo.
I saw her for the last time when I was 12. However, we remained close thru letters and phone calls. Kiki spilled many family secrets my parents would rather I never learned.
She corresponded with my mother & me separately, though we lived in the same house. I was instructed to "tear up" after reading in case it was fished out of the garbage can. -- But I always did that anyway.
Kiki once described my mother as "the devil" when they were going up. She often stated how sad she felt for me. She understood my anxiety attacks. My mother did not drive for the same reason.
After Mom's death, as I was sorting thru her belongings, I discovered 2 letters in a bottom drawer. Both were from Aunt Kiki, dated several years apart. Naturally, I read them. I was aghast to discover negative and hurtful things written about me.
I realized why my mother had saved them. Her evil hand was reaching out from the grave to get in one last dig at me. Angrily, I ripped the papers to pieces!
My father had warned me that Kiki was 2-faced with false values. He considered her a bad influence. At one point, he told me to stop corresponding with her. I was an adult and ignored his advice. Now I felt like a fool.
During a lunch with my friend, Pat, I told her of my discovery.
"What you should have done," Pat told me, "was go to a Thrift Store, buy some cheap, tacky looking knick-knacks, put them in a box along with the letters, then mail it to your Aunt. Include a note saying your mother wanted her to have these."
Too bad I had torn up those letters. I liked that idea! I'm surprised I didn't think of it.
At the time, Kiki was around the same age as I am, now. Twenty years before, she left a successful husband who adored her for an abusive liar who promised her a new Cadillac every year. After he died, instead of embracing her freedom, she took up with another invective creep out of fear of being alone.
I forgave her. My anger was not as deep as my pity.
Aunt Kiki had become a victim of her own bad judgement and misbehavior.
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