The Things They've Handed Down
As much as most of us hate to hear it, we are all properties of the people that raised us or influenced us and in most cases, these people are our family.  When I was growing up, there was barely one or two classmates in high school who had parents who were divorced.  Suddenly when I entered university and even more so when I moved to Regina, it was hard to find anyone who had parents who were still together.  I imagine that in most cases, it might have been the best thing for everyone, the idea that two people were not meant to be together, but somehow it creates a strong disillusionment about relationships.  The one thing we mostly miss about our parents is that really we should not be as influenced by the two of them as a group as much as we should look at them as examples or role models as individual people.
We never seem to make that mistake when it comes to the rest of our family, though and that has never been more apparent than in the past week.  You see, I lost two very special people to me this week who have inspired me not because of what they did in the wider spectrum of the world, but by who they were as individuals.  Many people around me have heard me tell tales of my great uncle Deno Fontana and my great aunt Evelyn Conden, but when someone special leaves you, sometimes the best way to really say goodbye is to talk about them.
Uncle Deno was my father's uncle, the last of the Italian family and the last of seven children that followed the dreams of immigrant parents who entered this country at the beginning of the last century.  He lived most of his life in Virden, Manitoba, but he definitely wasn't tied down to that neck of the woods.  In fact, ask anyone who ever watched horses on the racing circuits in the last sixty years and you will probably find someone who knows my great uncle and most likely raced against one of his horses.  He practised as a driver of the horses for many years and when he quit driving, he concentrated on training and owning the horses.  He, however, was not content with just racing as he owned gravel pits and oil and god knows what else.  He stayed a bachelor, but I somehow doubt he was really ever alone.
My first recollections of him really stem from his ownership of a horse called Alcars Brutus.  He had quit driving when my parents started going to the races, but his name was typed in bold print in the program for the world to still see.  It was at this point that he started a fire within my parents to follow up his dreams of racing and not long after attending faithfully for a few years, my parents bought their first racehorse.  There is no doubt he was behind the reason for my parents taking on this life of weekend trips, barn work everyday and seeing the ecstasy and disappointment that every race brought with it.  Uncle Deno was there every step of the way, either in physical form or in spirit, even during races in his hometown where our first horse blazed to the front for a quick 0:59 first half only to be almost distanced by the entire pack at the end of the race and finish well back of the two minute mark.  He was never disappointed though.  He had days like that too.
For me, I really got to know him better when I asked to interview him for an assignment in an elementary school project.  I learned so much about this man and whenever I go back through my old papers, I often find a relict of that project, maybe a winning photo of him driving or the interview questionnaire that he filled in vaguely and later I had to dig a little deeper.  Dad's family was never one to give all the details on anything so even today, I have to pry a little more to get information.  Uncle Deno never minded though, since he never had children that got to write about him.  I think he liked the feeling that someone wanted to remember him and I was proud that I could write about my famous great uncle.  I still look at that book on him fondly as one of the few relatives that really didn't have any dirty secrets to tell, but stories of his life that were completely cool without mystery.
That was the essence of Uncle Deno: there was no mystery to him.  He was a simple man who told you what he felt.  He was a man with money who rarely let you glimpse that he had any to boast about.  He mentioned his accomplishments, but never glorified them and was more interested in hearing yours.  I had the chance to see him on his 90th birthday two years ago and I appreciate those moments with him dearly.  He was a person I celebrate because the nice guys rarely celebrate themselves.  He was one of those nice guys.
Now Aunt Ev was a different sort of person, not exactly the type that you can exactly put into one category.  As much as you could find one person who liked her, there was always someone who didn't.  She was a woman who could be so many things at the same time, mean and caring, discriminating and fair, disrespectful and proud.  She was the independent one in the family who lived her life by her own rules no matter if she stepped on a few others and yet in some crazy way, she was the one person who would end up supporting you in the end. 
She was my mother's aunt, the one who left the family home first and made her way into the world.  She was, by some people's words, "the old maid", but she was as far from being anyone's maid as one could get and somehow while her white hair may have defined as old, you were quickly reminded by everyone around you that her hair had been white from the day that you met her.  She worked in a man's world and demanded the utmost respect for not following the typical path of mother and wife and staying true to what she wanted to do with her life.
Going through Mom's memory chest in my grandmother's old house, you were quickly reminded at how much Aunt Ev had been a part of my mother's life.  Doilies, skating dresses, numerous toys of both girl and boy kinds filled the space and whatever my mother needed, my great aunt would provide to the best of her ability.  It wasn't the material stuff that mattered, though, but the time that must have been spent listening to a child tell about her world when she could have had children of her own to splendour with.  The difference was that my mom was her child, no matter whose womb she came from whether she liked it or not and most of the time, you couldn't help but like her.  Even my dad, whom Aunt Ev would goad with the remark, "Italian bohunk", liked her because deep down, whatever my mother saw in my dad, Aunt Ev saw too and that was enough for her to respect him.
My brother and I were also her children despite being two generations apart.  Much like my mother, Aunt Ev saw to it that we got what we wanted.  This usually meant lots of toys, two of each of course and a closet of clothes to match.  My personal favourite was a handcrafted bunk bed that my mother, grandmother and great aunt came together to give me for Christmas for my Cabbage Patch Kids with bedding made by my great aunt's best friend, Lil.  Even when times came about when the family would argue about the smallest of things, they somehow came together when it mattered and when it came to the happiness of a child, Aunt Ev would assuredly be there. 
She was there for some of the most important times of my life, giving of herself and never afraid to dirty herself.  I remember a birthday when my classmates plotted an evening against me, making me spend the event by myself for an overnight student council meeting.  My great aunt said differently and instead of an evening by myself, I spent the night with my family.  Why was this special?  Aunt Ev was a classy woman, dressed to kill at a given moment, but she wasn't above putting on a pair of stinky over-rented bowling shoes and eating burgers and fries at McDonald's if that was what her great nephew wanted to do for his grade seven birthday.  She knew what she wanted and mostly that was making me happy.
This is an example of the contradicting person she was:
I went into Winnipeg for a music competition where I was playing in a sax quartet.  My great aunt was sitting with my parents watching us play well, but not enough to win the award.  No matter though, Aunt Ev vocally within earshot of the other competitors, stated that we were the best, that we deserved to win. 
She could embarrass you with her pride and she could be proud enough to embarrass you.  She was the type of person who sometimes you wanted to hide away from for the things she said and somehow in the same moment, you could still say, "yeah she's my great aunt" with every ounce of contentment because she probably said it with your heart in mind.  She rarely let down her guard and there wasn't a moment when what you heard her say wasn't exactly what she felt.  If she didn't like something, she let you know, but when she believed that you did something great, she was the first person to tell you the greatness of what you did.  You maybe didn't always like her, but when all was said and done, you would respect her and she deserved it.  You never could say that she didn't.
We are a product of the people around us and I don't think I could be the person I am without these two people in my life.  They gave me the gift of honesty and opinion and what it meant to stand up for myself.  They were individuals and they made me into an individual who understood the power of one person.  I was their child at any given moment and there was never any doubt that if my parents could not have raised me, these two people who have done it and offered me the many values that my parents brought me up to believe because these were the people that gave my parents their values. 
They weren't perfect, but perfection is over-rated.  They were themselves and that was enough.  I couldn't have loved either anymore anyway.
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