My grandparents gave another operatic name to this girl-baby born in 1920. "La Giaconda" is what Grandpa used to call her... which eventually was pronounced like Ja-goan-da by her brothers and sisters who had trouble with the proper vowel placement when they were little. As the years went along, the family started calling her Jaye, and that's what mostly stuck.
Aunt Jaye... always very distinctive from my first memories of her. She was pure fashion with a passion, and she loved every feminine accessory to go along with the latest styles. Pretty shoes, fancy purses, lavish furs, anything with a leopard design, and jewelry.... Aunt Jaye was the Jewel Queen of the family.
My Aunt Dolly swore by classic styles, and still does to this day, but Aunt Jaye opted for the most attention-getting outfits which screamed Hollywood from head to toe. For as long as I can remember, Aunt Jaye's make-up was "close-up perfect," with false eyelashes that brought out the vamp in her, and magenta-colored lipstick that was unmistakably her signature color. Because of that bright magenta on her lips, I had cousins who cringed at the thought of a kiss hello from Aunt Jaye, and still other cousins who would hide behind a chair, their parents, or a tree, just to avoid that magenta kiss. And along with that kiss went a face-pinch.... as Aunt Jaye kissed you on one side of your face, her hand would be pinching the other side of your face as she told you how much you looked like "the family." (My cousin D would always tell her: "Well, who else would I look like?")
I've seen many photographs of my Aunt Jaye over the years, and the pictures taken of her when she was in her 20s and 30s were absolutely stunning. Even into her 40s, if you didn't know who she was, you would swear you were looking at a close-up of the latest Hollywood actress who was set to star in a film with Clark Gable or Cary Grant. Jaye was honestly that beautiful, and she just oozed glamour from her perfectly-coiffed hair to the satin sheen of her petite shoes.
Aunt Jaye's husband, Uncle T, owned a nightclub in The City...... she had meals cooked for her by the chefs there, so she never had to worry about messing up her own kitchen with food preparation. Aunt Jaye didn't like to cook, didn't want to cook, and had no intention of learning how to cook for the whole family. I would imagine that after all those years growing up in my grandmother's kitchen, some sort of culinary talent would have rubbed off on her. But Aunt Jaye was determined to take full advantage of the well-skilled chefs in her husband's restaurant. The dining room in Jaye's house was gorgeous, dripping with crystal chandeliers and beautiful china, but the family never went there for a meal. If you wanted a Sunday dinner or a holiday feast, then everyone went to Grandma's.
Uncle T's nightclub was a well-known hot spot in the hey-day of The City, and Aunt Jaye could be found there dancing the night away--- and her dancing was elegant, without fault. The club was frequented by regulars who loved to hear big-band music, and also by celebrities who liked the anonymity and privacy of the club. My mother and my dad used to go there for dinner and dancing every payday.... and my mother once danced with Jimmy Durante who was a regular patron there.
Aunt Jaye and Uncle T had one child, a daughter R, born barely four months after me. Because of our closeness in age, we grew up as sisters, inseparable in everything but temperament. I was the quiet one, R was more flamboyant. R seems to have inherited our Uncle Larry's dancing gene, because she can ballroom-dance circles around anyone else on a dance floor. My cousin R also inherited her mother's passion for fashion, and she thrives on always looking her best, as if she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue.
When our generation of cousins were kids, Aunt Jaye was like a movie star to us. When the family got together at Grandma's for a big dinner, Jaye was the one who always arrived later than everyone else. My dad would say: "Jaye doesn't just walk into this house, she makes an entrance." And she certainly did.... we all couldn't wait to see what she was wearing. Always an elegant hat, a Hollywood-worthy dress, ropes of pearls, the most beautiful shoes, and to top it all off, a fur coat. I can distinctly remember "petting" one of her furs because it was just so soft and I couldn't resist. Aunt Jaye scolded me: "Don't touch my coat.... you'll hurt the fur!" My dad once told his sister: "If you're so worried about hurting the poor animals who died for that coat, why don't you just wear a paper bag over that dress?"
Aunt Jaye was immensely loyal to, and protective of, the family. Jaye, like Grandpa, always believed "Family is always family, no matter what." We were all at a christening party for one of my cousin's children in the early 1990s. I had picked up my dad, and along with a man I was dating at the time, the three of us drove out to the Island to join the family at the party. Not five minutes after we had arrived, my Aunt Jaye pulled me over to the side of my cousin's backyard and asked me why I had brought "a stranger" to the party. "He's not a stranger.... he's my date," I told Aunt Jaye. She was not satisfied. "This is a family party, and he's not family." I was at a loss for words, or pretty close to it..... so I just looked at my aunt and said "What are we here? The Royal Family?" Aunt Jaye pursed her magenta lips and then said "We're better than the Royal Family, we're Italian... and don't you forget it."
Loyal. Fiercely loyal, always. There are days now, however, when Aunt Jaye can barely recognize her family. Other days, she cannot remember their names. Nearly two years ago, Aunt Jaye's memory capability began to fade... the result of a stroke of sorts. No need to go into all the medical details..... suffice it to say that Aunt Jaye is now a quiet shadow of her once overwhelmingly ebullient self. She can no longer live at home..... my cousin R had to make the hardest decision of her life, to move her mother into a nursing facility.
I speak to Aunt Jaye over the phone, after my cousin R tells her who I am and makes sure she understands. Once Jaye realizes exactly who I am, that I am her brother's daughter, her voice on the phone sounds happy and enthusiastic, bubbling with love.... she'll tell me how good her daughter is to her, how much she loves her, how much she misses seeing their little dog. She'll ask me how I'm feeling, and she will tell me to give her regards to my husband. At the end of the conversation, she will say: "Don't forget that I love you... I love all my family." As she says those words, I swear that I can almost feel her pinching my face like she did so many years ago.
My cousin R told me that she brought a photograph of her parents to her mother's room in the hospital.... the photo sits in a pretty gilded frame on the table beside Aunt Jaye's bed. The picture was taken decades ago, when both Jaye and Uncle T were at the height of their life together, the height of their health and good looks. They're dressed in their finest, ready for dinner and dancing. Uncle T was a handsome man, Aunt Jaye was a strikingly beautiful woman. I know that my cousin R wants to remember her parents just that way, and it must be very hard for R to see the quiet little woman who waits for her visits. Aunt Jaye is no longer the one making an entrance into Grandma's house. Now it's my cousin R who's making that entrance, into the nursing facility to visit her mother.
It goes without saying that the family misses their Hollywood star.... their Giaconda, their Jaye. No one expected, at nearly 93 years of age, for Aunt Jaye to not be able to live in her own house anymore. Considering the extent of Aunt Jaye's memory loss, it would indeed be a blessing if she were blissfully unaware of her surroundings.... if when my cousin R goes to visit her every evening, Jaye thinks she's just coming home from work, not coming into the hospital for a visit.
When I speak to Aunt Jaye over the phone, I picture her as she always was... perfectly coiffed and dressed, with beautifully manicured hands and nails, false eyelashes, and that striking magenta lipstick. Aunt Jaye still wears her signature lipstick color.... the only difference is that the magenta now has to be applied by her daughter. My cousin R is overwhelmingly thankful that she still has her mother. Their lives changed overnight, in the blink of an eye, in one heart-beat of a moment.
In that one solitary heart-breaking moment, the exuberance and essence of Aunt Jaye disappeared.... vanished forever from the woman we all knew and loved. But the angels are kind at times... when whispers of the family somehow make contact with Aunt Jaye's consciousness, that's when her eyes light up and she remembers exactly who she is, who she was, and the family she came from. "Family is family, no matter what happens."
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