The Gift of Aunties
- Jodi Allen
- Feb 24
- 5 min read
Growing up, I was blessed with aunties.
Five of them, to be exact.
My dad had three sisters. My mom had two. That is not to say I don’t have uncles — I do, and they are wonderful — but they joined our story by marrying my aunties and becoming part of the fabric of our family.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about siblings.
On my dad’s side, he is the only one of his siblings who is gone.
On my mom’s side, she is the only one left.
That reality feels strange.
I love my aunties. Each one has been my favourite for different reasons.
I had the pleasure of living with Aunty Yvette and her family when I interned in my dad’s hometown. Several of her boys felt like brothers to me during those university years. We lived life together — busy, loud, full.
She is the photographer in our family — the one capturing moments before anyone else even realizes they’re happening. She would get wildly e
xcited at hockey games. She was close in age to my dad, and when he was nearing the end of his life, we called her to come be with us and with him. That mattered deeply.
Aunty Brenda is our historian.
She remembers the birthdays, the places, the photographs, the stories. She holds the dates and the details. She takes great pride in making things with her hands for her nieces and nephews — and now for the great-nieces and nephews who have followed.
I was her flower girl once. It was a wonder anyone managed to get me to dance or smile in those photos because I was painfully shy. But she kept those memories, as she keeps so many.
She knows where we come from.
Aunty Drena is the baby of my dad’s family. Dad was twelve years older than her. I am twelve years younger than her. I’ve always loved that symmetry.
I remember sitting and watching her get ready to go out on dates — fascinated by makeup and curling irons and the mystery of being grown up. She was a lifeguard in Young and used to take us to the pool. She would buy me ice cream sandwiches.
When we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s for the weekend, she was often still sleeping when we woke up. We would wait for her to get up — usually around noon — because she had been out the night before with her friends. She felt glamorous and grown-up and just a little bit magical to me.
My mom’s family was more spread out. We didn’t see them as often, but distance never lessened love.
For years, I somehow believed I had visited Aunty Linda in Whitehorse. It wasn’t until I was in my forties — during my first visit to meet my future in-laws— that I realized I had never actually been there. Seeing the white horse monument along the Trans Canada Highway in Manitoba triggered the memory of a cross country journey when I was five. This lead to my thinking that I had traveled to the Yukon. Childhood imagination is funny like that.
Mostly, I remember visiting my Aunty and her family on Vancouver Island. This place has become my mom’s happy place.
Aunty Linda loved people. She had a black belt in karate, which always seemed both impressive and fitting. She was patient and kind. She had a laugh that I enjoyed, and a wisdom that I felt in awe of. She passed very quickly. It catches my breath sometimes to realize she was my age when she left this life. The same age I am now.
We still spend time on the Island. I think it is where my mom feels closest to her sister.
And then there is Aunty Jean.
My oldest auntie. My mom’s eldest sister.
For a long time, she lived on a farm just off the highway outside of Lloydminster. Hundreds of cattle. Wide-open skies. It was the only place we ever rode horses.
She always had dogs — mostly Labradors. She trained them, and she trained others how to train theirs. I was mesmerized by how they listened to her. I suspect that is where my love for Labradors began.
When I was in high school, my grandparents lived in Saskatoon. They would pick me up at the crack of dawn and drive three hours to Lloydminster, stopping in North Battleford for breakfast. If Grandma and I didn’t eat fast enough, Grandpa would sit in the car and honk the horn to get us moving again. We would spend the day touring the farm, driving through the feedlot, listening to stories, sharing meals — and then drive all the way home again.
Later, during university, a friend and I interned in a small ranching town north of Lloyd. I lived with Aunty Jean for those weeks. It felt full circle.
She showed up in big and small moments of my life.
When I flooded my parents’ basement after going to see Titanic and leaving a washing machine running — one I had been warned about — she stayed with me. The entire basement had an inch of water because towels were blocking the drain. I was terrified to face my parents alone. She helped me clean it up and waited with me until they returned.
When my Grandpa died suddenly of a heart attack while my parents were in Egypt, she came to Saskatoon. We sat at the airport together, watching my parents come down the escalator from arrivals, knowing something was terribly wrong. She was strong for us.
When I was young and overwhelmed with a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy that had arrived with no thought or planning, she stood in the yard with me and helped me begin to figure it out. She recommended a book: How to Train a Puppy You Can Live With. Practical. Steady. Wise.
She gave the most creative and thoughtful gifts. It wasn’t about the presents — but we were always excited to see what she might bring or send. You never quite knew.
She loved to explore. To travel. To discover. We would hop into her SUV with a dog or two, and she would have somewhere to show me — a park, a shop, a coffee stop. And somehow, she would always pull together a meal that felt magical. If you were visiting, she would invite the rest of the Wobeser family too. They needed to see you.
We lost Aunty Jean a week and a half ago.
I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I let myself feel that sadness. That regret. And then I decided life is too short to stay there.
I am grateful for the experiences I did have.
She loved her children and grandchildren fiercely. She loved her nieces and nephews. As my mom said this week, she thought we were all pretty special — and she knew how much we loved her.
She was strong. Independent. Adventurous.
She lived her way.
And she left this life her way.
And I am so thankful she was my auntie.
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