Aunt Chita

My grandfather’s aunt was a nun who lived in Los Angeles. We called her Aunt Chita. For most of her life she was known as Sister Adele Marie. [The story goes that my mom was supposedly named after her, but my mom claims that she was actually named after a girl that my grandfather went to high school with and thought was pretty.] Aunt Chita’s family was Mexican (she was insistent that they were Spanish-Mexican) and “chita,” (so I’m told) means “little one”.

She was born in 1901 and lived to be over 100 years old, although I regret that I cannot remember what year exactly she passed in. The blow of her death was softened by its expectedness, given her advanced age, and the distance that she lived from us. She lived in a convalescent home for nuns (I always thought of them as retired nuns, but that doesn’t seem right. You don’t retire from being a nun) attached to a college that sat above a posh neighborhood in Beverly Hills. I think I remember when we were driving towards the home, up the windy streets, that we passed the house that O.J. Simpson was supposed to have committed murder in. The view from across the parking lot was of The Getty. Pretty nice real estate.

Aunt Chita spent most of her adult life as a high school Spanish teacher, if I remember correctly. She was on a mission in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She wrote books. I was told she became a nun because she was the youngest girl in her family and her mother wanted one of her daughters to become a nun… and she was born at the beginning of the century, so that’s what happened. Aunt Chita was physically small, but she had big personality. She had a great sense of humor. She played piano beautifully, even in her nineties. Once a sister walked past as we were in the gorgeous visitor's area, where Aunt Chita was near a piano. The sister requested that she play a song. Aunt Chita wanted to know what the sister would give her. “I’ll pray for you,” the sister said. Aunt Chita said that she would prefer some candy.

While Aunt Chita eventually lost her short term memory and we would reintroduce ourselves to her repeatedly over the course of our visits, she maintained a good memory of the distant past. Unfortunately I only have retained a wisp of a recollection of her talking about eating watermelons when she was young.

She had a good friend, Sister Kathleen, who we also would see when we were down in L.A. Sister Kathleen was slightly younger, but she is also gone – cancer. Once she decided that it would be good for us kids to see a recently deceased nun that was lying in state. I had never seen a dead body before. I remember looking at this old woman who had no attachment to me, and being kind of freaked out.

For Aunt Chita’s 100th birthday they got a mariachi band and served virgin margaritas. I can’t remember if this was the same trip, but someone once gave her a beautiful Hawaiian lei. Her skin looked so delicate, and the flowers were so vibrant.

I can remember the cafeteria and the visiting area, and how she would ask us if we had to use the lav or the john (which we always thought was funny). I was getting out of the shower tonight, and I felt like writing these memories. They’re all I have of her. If I haven’t written anything about her, I have definitely talked about her. She was a neat lady. I was too young to really remember all that much. Maybe this is the beginning of the time where I begin obsessing about my family history. My grandma knows it all. She’s all about family trees and genealogy. More than that I’d like to preserve my own memories before I forget. It would be impossible for me to completely forget Aunt Chita, but it’s getting murkier as time passes and I cram my head with new memories. I feel like a few years ago was one of happiest times of my life, and even with that so recently ended I barely remember most of it.

I meant to go to bed right after my shower. Oops.