Losing a magic aunt

Everything
Delray Beach, FL
December 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In every family there is someone who’s always there, whose home is always open, who always just gets you.

In mine, that would have been my late father’s little sister, Auntie Shaindie.

She got married and moved to Long Island when I was just a baby, but pretty much any vacation time throughout my childhood was spent together. Our epic drives down the New York State Thruway defined my childhood, and knowing what awaited us at the other end was like every fabulous holiday rolled into one.

She and my Uncle Donald were central figures in my life. She actively followed my work, often reviewing the links I shared online and critiquing my interviews and articles. She often commented on my photography, and every time we were together she assumed the role of spotter - quietly pointing me toward my next composition. She was our North Star.

We were thrilled to have our own kids learn just how special she was, and she revelled in them just as much as she had done with me a generation earlier.

Auntie Shaindie - aka Shirley Wolfeld - died earlier yesterday after a cruelly long battle with cancer.

For once, I have no words. Just unchecked anger at what she and her immediate family were forced to endure.

Yet she never lost who she was, never gave up hope, even in our final conversation, that she’d somehow find a way to beat this thing.

I wish I knew why the universe works as it does, and I’m hoping someday we’ll get some of those answers.

But for now we’re left with countless lessons from her, and it’s on us to apply them as best we can. It’s what she would have wanted.

#life #family #everything

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