Whenever I saw her, even in her later years supported by a wooden cane she looked elegant. A slight woman, gracefully etched by the years of her life, she had an easy smile. That elegant tiny woman was my Aunt Betty. Well, not exactly my aunt. And yet, yes, precisely that my aunt.
Aunt Betty was my grandmother Miriams dearest and oldest friend. They met when they were five years old over at Temple Emanuel, located in downtown Denver back in the day.
One Shabbat, Aunt Betty was running up and down the formally carpeted aisle when their eyes met and so began a friendship destined to survive the vicissitudes of life.
Just a few short years later Aunt Betty lost her mother and was a young orphan. From girlhood to the time both women reached 90?. . . indeed, theirs was a friendship to last a lifetime.
Although Aunt Betty was not mine, nor my siblings and first cousins biological aunt, our bond with her transcended that of a blood relative. She was Aunt Betty to all of us grandchildren of my Grandma Miriam, may she live and be well. Betty Striker became a part of our family.
We had a special relationship, Aunt Betty and I. We shared a birthday. I can still picture the excitement of the moment when this great discovery was revealed to me.
I was in the sixth grade. Aunt Betty had recently lost her beloved husband Irv while they were on a trip visiting Morocco. Aunt Betty was cuddling on an arm chair at my grandmothers home at 915 Monaco Pkwy. with her adorable tiny dog named Candy, while I was sitting on the shaggy carpeting by her feet, looking up at her, and somehow at that moment my grandmother told me her dearest friend and I shared a birthday.
Now, for some people a birthday is not much. Perhaps a non-event kind of a day, just marking the passage of another year. Not so for Aunt Betty absolutely not. For her a birthday was a very special time to celebrate and grant wishes, to appreciate another year we were given in the march of time. To treasure the day we entered this world.
Without fail, ever since I was 12, Aunt Betty and I have exchanged birthday cards and birthday wishes, right up until last month when she had the honor of turning 90 years old!
We both savored this little exchange that, through the years, became a birthday ritual. We had the birthday bond. Come the fall, Aunt Betty and I were already entering high birthday season on the search for just the right gesture to mark the day.
This was a loving and warm relationship between the young and the old a friend and an aunt all rolled into one.
Aunt Betty was that special aunt who splurged on a small extra treat for you, who offered advice and suggestions, and always, always, a listening ear over a nice dinner she took you out for.
I know my grandmother and Aunt Betty have been there for one another through thick and thin. They shared in one anothers joys and heartaches. They were so close, they would even bicker like sisters from time to time, reminiscent at times of Lucy and Ethel from the I Love Lucy show.
When I was a teenager and spending a Sunday at Aunt Bettys perfect little house on Private Street, she fell while gardening and hurt her leg.
Im not sure why I did not call my mother, who was just a few blocks away, at our home on Jasmine St. I was just 16, fresh with a drivers license and I proceeded to drive Aunt Betty to the hospital. I spent the remainder of the day with her there, until evening when I drove her back home all stitched and bandaged up. Lil Halpern, the third of this special triangular friendship, went on to nickname me Florence Nightingale since that Sunday right up until the day she died.
There was a time when there was an abundance of Colorado peaches well into September, when in honor of Rosh Hashanah my sister Riki and I prepared Aunt Bettys famous homemade peach jam recipe, passed down to us via Aunt Honey.
Speaking of Aunt Honey, imagine our families sheer delight when her daughter, my first cousin Dianna, together with her young family, recently moved into Aunt Bettys original beautiful home on Birch Street, where she raised her two sons Paul and Allan, of whom she was always so proud.
The house now remains in our family for Dianna to raise her two young sons in. Pretty sentimental . . .
As for next birthday, Aunt Betty, it will be pretty weird for me. After a lifetime of 90 birthdays you were taken back.
And I shall miss you so. Im not sure how Ill celebrate next year without our specialness shared. Maybe Ill send a card up in a balloon up to Heaven where I know you are now after the beautiful life you lived here on earth with us.
