Thanksgiving for Aunt Mary

My Aunt Mary, at 96, is a living lesson in how to survive. Last Sunday morning after finishing up a yoga class, I switched my phone back on to see missed calls and voice mail messages from my cousin Karen and JB. Immediately I knew that something must have happened to Aunt Mary.
In large Italian families, it is not unusual to have the last unmarried daughter stay at home to care for aging parents. Aunt Mary, one of five girls, did just that. She worked at US Steel, a career woman before it was commonplace. She not only never married, but she never even learned to drive, walking to work, taking buses to town and relying on others to drive her when she needed to get to a family event or holiday celebration.
Everybody should have an Aunt Mary.  She remembers all family birthdays, with cards and presents too.  I was the beneficiary of a great family birthday tradition as a child in which Aunt Mary gave us a dollar for every year of our life.  So getting older meant getting more dough -- and it was surely something to look forward to.
She was devoted first to her aging mother, and then to her siblings, nieces, nephews, and now great and great great nieces and nephews. 
As she and I have gotten older, I have come to realize that while all of those tangible presents and her very real presence have been such constant blessings, there is something so much more edifying about how she lives her life.
Aunt Mary lives totally in the present moment.
This is a lesson I have longed to learn.  In the firmament of magnets that have graced the face of our refrigerator over the years, this is one that can always be found and is attributed to Buddha -- "The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment, wisely and earnestly."
And so last Sunday, when Aunt Mary was taken to the hospital after a fall, she sat peacefully and was engaged in the Steeler game as we waited for the results of her X-rays.  After the ED physician said he saw nothing broken, she prepared to return home (while I am mentally obsessing about how I am going to leave her in her apartment).  It turns out she could not bear weight on her leg, so they ended up keeping her overnight.  That night and the next day when I saw her, her only seeming concern was that I remember to call her favorite bakery and order a birthday cake for my cousin Karen.  She must have told me five times to remember to get the cake and assured me that she would pay for it and asked that I get my uncle or a friend to pick it up. 
I was further reminded of her positive mental outlook when she was presented with her dinner tray of what looked to me like classically nondescript hospital food.  "Beautiful, beautiful", she kept repeating as she ate every bite of food on that tray.   Turns out her hip is broken. 
When I went to see her in the nursing home where she has gone to recover, she was waiting at the dining room table for her dinner tray to arrive. "Beautiful, beautiful", she again exclaimed, as she proceeded to consume every bite on that tray too.
She does not appear to be concerned about when or whether her hip will heal, when or whether she will be able to return to her apartment.  That is because she is not thinking about that.  She is only thinking of what in the present moment she can focus on that is positive.  She is helping me more than I am helping her right now.  Forget Buddha, watch Aunt Mary.