A year ago my favorite aunt passed away. Though in her 80’s, the event happened suddenly. She’s been on my mind a lot lately. Oddly, I have almost no photos of her or digital traces you might expect in today’s social media heavy world. Our relationship existed almost exclusively in analog. Perhaps that’s part of what made it so special and memorable for me. Neither of us knew the other’s birthday, though we each had a vague idea of the month. We emailed occasionally, but usually if we spoke it was on the phone or in person. Since our digital history is low, I cherish my memories of our fun adventures and the valuable life lessons I learned from her.
For a brief period of time, taking and printing digital photos was my aunt’s hobby. I probably have the most pictures from that time period. However, she mostly took pictures of me. Even after she died, I could only find a nice printed photo of us from 2002. She and my uncle were living in southwestern France for a few months on a work trip. I went to visit them for a couple of weeks.
From this trip to France, we created one of our longest traditions, one that still makes me chuckle. I had recently spent a semester abroad in Paris. While preparing for her trip, I explained to my aunt that the French greet each other with kisses. Learning this custom had been tricky for me. Every region kisses a different number of times, but I never knew what that number was. I also never seemed to lean my head in the right direction when receiving kisses creating a lot of awkward moments.
Based on my experiences, she decided to practice. We settled on 4 kisses, the maximum, and declared it “quatre, à la parisienne” (roughly translated to “four kisses, paris style). After a few rounds, always quick with the witty replies, she exclaimed, “I’m going to get whiplash every time I greet someone!”
I saw her for the last time in late 2023. We hadn’t seen each other in over 4 years and she had some signs of dementia. But when we saw each other a reflex kicked in. We did our elaborate kissing greeting, quatre à la parisienne, as though no time had passed.