She is an amazing baker and I remember, since I was a child, licking the bowl of cake dough mix, and I can do it until the age of 37 now. She introduced me to the love of food and because my parents weren’t rich and lived a very basic life I had ‘black’ and ‘white’. I had my day-to-day with my parents, they were always short of food. My mum couldn’t cook and I think she couldn’t cook because she wasn’t financially secure to do so, she couldn’t spoil me with that. And with my aunty I had a very different life.
I rebelled against my aunty and I remember that was probably the most important decision I ever made in my life because I guess I sacrificed everything. There was period of time when I was going to the church because at my grandparent’s place it was forbidden, and whatever was forbidden was ‘sweet’. So I was going because everyone was going and I started questioning religion and within the dialog with myself, I disagreed with a lot of stuff that I was told.
One Sunday when it was mass at the church, I had to go — because my aunty said “We are going to the church”. She said “How come you can sleep while other people are in the church” and she pulled the duvet off of me and said “Now you are going to get up” and I said “No”.
It was a massive gap that I had created between the two of us by not accepting her authority I guess. But I remember the adrenaline punch and my heartbeat was going probably 200 beats per minute. I made myself very vulnerable, in a sense, but also I made myself very strong because I stood up for what I had believed. I think it was the first time in my life that I said something that wasn’t suitable for her even though I loved and I always will love her. I think she didn’t talk to me for probably a week or maybe we had very cold relations because both of us had to understand what had happened — and that was my thing. And then I realised that I am strong and that was an amazing step.
My auntie has always loved what she was doing. She is doing what she loves and I cannot imagine her doing any other job. She works in the city but she lives in the village where my grandparents lived because they built her house where my grandfather was born. And even though there is a state doctor in the village, because if there is a school there must be a doctor, she is the one who is called in the middle of the night. So, any birth, any death, any high blood pressure. I think that there are about 100 houses and everyone has her number.
She is so helpful towards everyone, she has got so much dignity. I think all the closest people that I know, my grandpa that has died, my father 7 years ago and her best friend who has died of cancer around 8 years ago, everyone left holding her hand. She was giving so much hope to people, to probably the last moment they departed. She is so strong yet so fragile at the same time when I look at her. And you can upset her very easily, she is very emotional and I guess you can find a similarity in her love towards people.
