how you know someone loves you.

The other day when my "aunt" (AKA my mom’s long-time best friend) took me out to brunch she was telling me about the two books she had just finished reading. She told me they were really good and I should check them out. They were books that I had been wanting to read anyway and I said because of her recommendation, I would be sure to. She said “make sure you don’t buy them; I can send them to you.” And I told her it would be silly to send them because she doesn't live very far from me and I could just get them next time I see her.

Last night I came home from Shakespeare on the Common and saw a box from Amazon outside my apartment door. I racked my brain trying to figure out what I ordered. I was sure I hadn't ordered anything, unless I accidentally ordered two copies of Harry Potter last week. I opened the box slightly nervous for what could be inside. It was the two books my aunt had told me about. Brand new. I had told her I had an aversion to used books (ew, germs) though I clearly didn't mean books that a close friend or family member had read a time or two.

My aunt has always been there to encourage my interests in life. My sister was a dancer and my uncle was a doctor for the Boston Ballet, so my aunt and uncle were always bringing us to shows and letting us meet the dancers. I was more into athletics and they often supplied my family with their Red Sox season’s tickets. And when I wanted to be a figure skater, they brought me to the ice skating competitions that my uncle worked at.

It’s not enough that my aunt takes me out for a nice, expensive brunch. Or that she goes away and pays me ridiculous amounts of money to sleep in her beautiful house with her adorable dogs and drive her car around the city. She’s always doing something to make me feel loved. She makes me realize that you don’t have to be actual family to really be “family.” I love all my relatives dearly, but nobody would be there for me in a heartbeat like my aunt would be. And nobody really understands me or cares as deeply about me as she does. Sometimes I have a difficult time talking to her because she can seem a bit aloof, but then she does little things like this and I know how much she loves me.


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