Saturday, June 25, 2016
Even though that everyone knew this day would eventually come, it doesn't make it hurt any less. Doris and my mother, Dorothy Avilla, would talk on the phone every evening about 9. Doris was always there for you, no matter what the occasion. I got into the habit of talking on the phone with Doris. She stepped right in after my mother died, she gave me an ear to listen to me and very sage advice. She was not afraid to speak her mind. I know I would not of made it through all the rapid deaths in my family without Doris' guiding hand.
The first thing she would ask when you went to her house was how everything was going and if you wanted something to eat. She was of the era of when even if women worked all day during harvest season or anything else, there were three meals on the table everyday. Not anything precooked defrosted, full course meals with deserts and always cookies around. Well before the word "liberated" was bandied about, these women were actually running the show. Of course their husbands would never admit it, because it was just one of those unspoken truths. Doris worked on the tomato harvester and cut garlic every year.
I remember one day when I was four and we were living on Pierce Lane, I got upset with my mother and decided to run away from home. I was afraid to walk through the corral that Reno Cornaggia had his horses behind our house so I walked down past what is now JJ's. I am positive my mother and Doris had seen me and knew what I was doing. By the time I got to her house, she first asked me if I was hungry and then she told me to call my mother. Doris then told me what I did was not very nice and dangerous, for various reasons.
Doris was my cousin and it wasn't until I got older that I realized that family, whether blood or not, stuck by each other, no matter what. One of the greatest lessons I learned growing up in our family is that no matter what happens, you help when you can and sometimes you are just there.
I feel as if my mother has died all over again. I hope to think that they are somewhere, giggling. Even if Bill and my father are "pulling a garlic". Doris is one of the most purely good people I have had the please to know in my life. She will be missed terribly. She was so loved.
