“Spring has Sprung” was the last text she ever texted me that would make the all-too-familiar notification sound; the last text to make my phone light up with the profile picture that says “Don’t forget to smile” that I made for her contact when I got my first silver I-Pod generation 4 in second grade; the last text that I would read… or wouldn’t. She cared about me like no one else has before, or ever will. My Great Aunt Judy, or as I called her, Juju. 

She was a heavier 78-year-old woman, with short, white, curly hair. She wore slippers and occasionally grandma tennis shoes. Her “fashion” stayed consistent throughout my childhood, possibly the only consistent thing I had. She wore baggy black pants and a plain T-shirt (most of the time it was a vibrant purple or turquoise). Her temples and nose held the weight of her dollar-tree reading glasses. She often had a mug full of coffee with french vanilla creamer and her little red-leather notebook that was the size of a modern-day I-phone. 

She is the woman who would take me to preschool and grade school when I stood no higher than her hip. Occasionally, she would drive the tan GMC through the Tim Hortons drive-through and get us breakfast. She is the woman who would pick me up from school every day playing classical music on the radio, sometimes with a half-melted, milk-chocolate Hershey's bar. On two-hour delays, she would take my 2 sisters and I to Sam and Charlies, a little breakfast diner with colorfully painted wooden waffles on the walls for decoration. We went so often that we even made friends with the cook and waitress, and could tell when they restocked the toys in the little game that stood next to the gumball machine. I spent every summer with her, and now I can’t. If I had Apple Maps on my IPod growing up, the location titled “home” would be her house. The familiar white two-bedroom house became my own. I had everything a young girl could want there: a playset in the fenced-in backyard, a pink bunk bed, a black and white pomeranian to play with named Bandit (because of his black spots over his eyes), and a bike with no training wheels. I remember arguing with my sister at the end of the driveway, frustrated because I could not balance my little 5-year-old body on my pink bike with tassels hanging from the wheel bars. After she ran inside, upset with my frustration, my anger motivated me to hop on the bike and ride it with no training wheels for the first time. I made friends on her street: twin girls that were my age, all the way to an older man down the street who grew vegetables and made his own wooden utensils. Now I drive down this street, past her house, and I only regret not loving her home-away-from-home more. 

The worst thing about growing up is not the fact that you get older, but that everyone else around you does. When she got older, she was diagnosed with COPD. I remember one day her being free to explore the world and having an unlimited amount of time doing so, and then the next, she was restrained to her house by an oxygen tank. This tank was like a  handcuff to her sickness, and the key to let her out never existed. She wasn’t able to go to my dance recitals or out to breakfast. My parents had to start taking me to school because she couldn’t drive anymore. Her oxygen tank became the one thing I hated most in the world because I thought it took her away from me. Her diagnosis was like a slap in the face, except the sting from the slap never left. 

I would receive constant texts from her; from her first text wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day, all the way to the last. As I grew up and exceeded the height of her hip, I got more social, but also got less responsive. While she was typing her last message on her old flip phone with buttons labeled with the Alphabet in groups of three, I was too busy worrying about being social with friends on my 16th birthday to respond. A day after she sent the message, the reminder of opening it was washed away in my mind like waves washing back into the ocean, and two days after she sent the message, we found her unconscious. Now that she's gone, regret is all that can fill me: the regret of not responding. 

I was only able to walk down the hospital hallway once, with beige and white tiles lining the floor like a chessboard. I thought that I was the knight, preparing to fight her battles and keep her with me; to protect her like the knight protects the queen. As it turns out, I was only the pawn, and the hospital was playing me with their little game of “hope”.  The narrow and bending hallways moved me across the board, getting ready to sacrifice me to the other team: regret. I assumed this visit was the first of many rounds of this complex game. I thought, “if I win today, I can come back again soon”. As I walked past nurses’ stations and medical carts I prepared myself. Walking into the room, it felt like I was in a different dimension. I sat on the green, uncomfortable chair with a transparent orange circle pattern, and looked at the sleeping 78-year-old woman with silver hair. She was skinnier than I remembered, and also paler. The notepad on her bedside tray read. “I visited today Judy (April 27), I brought your slippers from home. They are on your table. I will be back tomorrow (April 28) -Christie”. The other pages were filled with reminders that my mom had been visiting her, because once she fell asleep for even just 3 minutes, she would forget everything from before. Fear filled me after I read that note. Fear that she wouldn’t remember me: her niece who had spent more time with her aunt growing up than what she did with her parents. Looking back on it now, I regret the optimism I held that she would get healthy. I wish I would’ve treated that visit as if it were the last… because it was. 

Despite my constant carrying of regret, I’m also filled with thanks to you, Juju. Thanks to you for shaping me into the person I am today. Thanks to you for making me appreciate what I have while I still have it. And thanks to you for making me love rose bushes and chick-a-dees a little more. 

Love, 

Your Chick-a-Dee