Aunt Maria has meant so much to me over the years. She is one of the most loving people I have ever met, and when you are a kid, and when you have an aunt like that, it is something special. You just know how special you are, because she tells you. And the way she tells you, it makes you feel like wow, it must be true. Every single time she saw you she would open up her arms for a big hug, with her eyes twinkling, completely focused on you.

I have so many memories of Aunt Maria at the egg farm, at family gatherings on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and of course just sitting in the kitchen in the old house, while she whipped up spatzeli for dinner, or deckeli for dessert.

I was definitely a kid from the suburbs, and so I loved visiting the ranch — exploring the attic, candeling eggs, finding “soft eggs” to throw at cousins, and even vaccinating chickens against Newcastle disease.

Once, somehow, I talked Sonja into giving me a turn at driving the new small tractor. Within moments, it was out of my control and we were going straight up a steep embankment. I panicked. But faster and smarter than me, Sonja reached over and turned the key just before the tractor, with us, might have fallen backward. At least that’s how it felt. We ran down to the house, where Aunt Maria assured Sonja she wasn’t having a heart attack, and explained that our guardian angels had been looking out for us. Aunt Maria had a way of listening to us. We knew she took us seriously, but at the same time she didn’t react as if I had nearly klled us both. She just talked about how our guardian angels had shown up just when we needed them, because that is what guardian angels (apparently) do.

I was floored. I never knew I had a guardian angel. Aunt Maria was so authoritative in her belief; it was beyond question, and the thought of my very own guardian angel, which she told me I had, touched me to the core. I have never forgotten that moment, and that’s just the kind of gift Aunt Maria would so frequently give to kids, and why I think we all loved her so much.

I will miss Aunt Maria so much. And by the way, I just love that picture of her with her mixmaster in the kitchen. Exactly as I will always remember her.