My Aunt Dolores, who taught me about generosity, unconditional warmth | Opinion

Each week, I tell stories to my granddaughter’s transitional kindergarten class. What do they see when they look at me? Do they already have a hard and fast idea of what is beautiful, desirable and worth their attention?

What I have found — with them and the hundreds of other children I have known — is that there is no preconceived superficial scale that measures beauty, worth and value. Children see something far more interesting and precious. They see who I am deep at the center of my being. They love what can be seen only with the heart.

When I was a child, my Aunt Dolores was the object of my small, frightened heart, longing for tenderness and unconditional warmth. My mother was rigid, strict, harsh, and punishing. Her sister, Dolores, was none of those things. If one were looking for surface attractiveness, one would not find it in Aunt Dolores. And yet, transcendent beauty shone from within a heart so accepting that there was room for us all. I was safe there, in a heart that was open, forgiving, tender, and overflowing with sweet abundance.

In my very best childhood memories, 13 of us lived together in a big old ramshackle house on F Street in Modesto. My aunt was a widow with eight children. My mother, a divorcee, my two siblings and me.

At 3 years old, I was the tenth of 11 children. Since my mother left every morning to manage the Lemar Café in downtown Modesto, Aunt Dolores was everyone’s mother. It was wonderful. The harsh punishing parent gone, and the big-hearted giver of abundance in charge.

She gave the pack of us the gift of exuberant freedom within a system of knowable standards and their logical consequences. And, always, there was the harbor of her arms when needed.

I remember my aunt being generous and kind, not just with us kids, but also with local homeless people who would pause at the gate behind our house. Cautiously approaching the back door, a few words were exchanged with Aunt Dolores. Going back into the kitchen, my aunt — who had so very little — returned with a gift from her scant resources for those who had even less. She handed a freshly opened can of Campbell’s soup to each of them. This done, the men, cradling their treasure, continued down the alley.

Aunt Dolores told me that there was a symbol on our gate signifying this was a house where a generous heart resided.

Within Aunt Dolores, there lived a spirit that was kind and compassionate in the most offhand way. I don’t think she believed that her actions deserved gratitude. She gave what she had and then went back to what she was doing without so much as a backward glance. There was a purity of purpose in everything my aunt did.

Each Sunday, we walked to our small, white clapboard church. As we entered the church, hand-in-hand, in our stiffly starched Sunday clothes, it was as though Aunt Dolores was the star of a grand production. She was the one everyone crowded around, smiles beaming, exchanging happy greetings. She had a contagious energy, and she shared it with joyful abandon.

After church, we took off our Sunday shoes for the walk home. The dirt was warm between our toes, and, with Aunt Dolores, we were carefree. Once we were home, Aunt Dolores made French toast. She could coax a banquet for 13 out of a couple loaves of Rainbow bread, a few eggs, a quart of milk and a dented old coffee can full of bacon grease.

Now, all these years later, it occurs to me that my work with children — hundreds over the years — is a reflection of all that I learned from Aunt Dolores. I am her legacy. I could not have come from any other source.

Bunny Stevens lives in Modesto, her hometown, and has served on The Modesto Bee Community Advisory Board. She is the opening courtesy clerk at the Safeway supermarket on McHenry Avenue and an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. Reach her at BunnyinModesto@gmail.com