The Favorite.

I was the youngest of 12 cousins on my Mom’s side. Us ‘babies’ of the bunch tend to get a lot of extra love and attention. I certainly did, most notably from my Aunt Carol, my mom’s sister.

My Aunt Carol

Aunt Carol had a sweet spot for me. She did things, just with me, that made me feel so special and loved. At sleepovers she’d order meatballs subs followed by ice cream, and she let my sister and I stay up reeeeally late watching TV.  And we had this thing between us, Aunt Carol and I. One visit I found a few coins - pennies and nickels under the couch pillows stuff - which I brought to her. Of course she let me keep them (“I’m rich!!!”). But oddly, on the next visit I started finding more coins, seemingly everywhere. She’d hidden them places but made it this game where she’d feign “Wow, you found another one Ronnie!?! I should start looking myself!”. We both knew what was happening, but we never said it out loud. And every time I’d come with another handful of loot, she had a way of giving me this little wink.  A wink with a sparkle in it.  Something she gave to no one else but me. This was OUR thing. Just for us. And it’s only one of countless ostensibly ‘little’ things she did with me, but in their small ways made me feel like a bigger part of her world. And it told me in no uncertain terms that I, her youngest nephew, held a special part in it.  

To all in her grander world, Aunt Carol’s ‘brand’ is synonymous with her eggplant parmesan. This is the stuff of legend. We always feasted at holidays (our family are eaters!), with two families squeezed together tightly at tables festooned with multiple trays of ziti, stuffed mushrooms, antipasto. Truly epic ‘everyone passes out from food coma after’ events. And the highlight of that spread was her two massive trays of eggplant parm. Aunt Carol spent many hours making it in a small kitchen. Some might find this a bit hokey, but I swear you could taste the love in it. She shared the recipe with her daughters, my Mom, and many others, who have tried valiantly to recreate it. Don’t get me wrong, they all make great eggplant parm, but for reasons that will never be known, and with universal agreement from all of us who’ve had it, no one could replicate Aunt Carol. There still remain conspiracy theories as to why (Why was as her sauce a little lighter colored? Did she add 1/2 cup more oil than the recipe?).  It was always a fun topic to debate. 

In 2000 my Aunt Carol was hospitalized and I was able to visit her in the hospital days before she would leave us.  I visited her with my wife who was pregnant with our first child due in a few months. She wasn’t able to speak well, so we talked more to her.  I shared that we had picked a name, and were going to name our daughter Chloe. Weak as she was, she put her hand on my wife’s stomach, smiled, and said so softly, so sweetly…“Chloe”. And then she looked straight at me. And she gave me that sparkle wink. She knew she’d never meet Chloe. And while it sounds a bit self-serving to think this, in that moment, I instinctively felt that she wanted me to know that she was telling me, and my daughter, that I was special. That’s how special I felt.

Aunt Carol passed away a few days later and the family asked me to give her eulogy at the funeral. Honored as I was, I wasn’t sure where to start. My experience with her was the same as many others, but even my special memories and connection to her, paled in comparison to so many others. The things I considered special were known by me only. So I interviewed my Mother, her husband/my Uncle Eddie, her 5 children, my sister (her God-daughter) and heard such lovely stories about the woman she was. 

But it was talking to my father that revealed an epiphany. My father is a great, kind and caring man, but he’d be the first to say no one would label him the “extroverted-huggy” type (if you know me you know I’m a hugger, that’s 100% my Mom’s side of the gene pole).  Yet, of all the wonderful, heartfelt stories from her and my other huggers, what my Dad said was something that I couldn’t understand in the moment but have come to understand as a profound observation that I’ve kept with me from that day on.

The conversation went something like this: (not verbatim of course, but very close)

Me: “Tell me about your memories of Aunt Carol”

Dad:  “Well Ronnie, Aunt Carol adored you. I bet you thought you were her favorite.”

Me: (Thought? Hmmm) “I did feel that, I guess being the baby of the family” 

Dad: “Well, hate to tell you, but you weren’t her favorite”

I instantly started thinking… who was it? I guessed my sister Susan. After all, Aunt Carol was her god-mother, and they did have a deep bond and connection. But that wasn’t the answer he gave.

Dad: “You never knew this Ronnie, no one knows really, but I was her favorite.” 

Huh? I cocked my head. Susan I’d get, sure, but my Dad, her brother-in-law?  Mr. “Please Don’t Hug Me”?  It didn’t compute. And if not Susan, I mean… I was the baby! I was confused.  

He saw that, and continued what I’d realized was his lesson.  And he said something so unexpectedly profound that it was like physically connecting to a poem, which went: 

Dad: “Here’s what you need to understand. 

This was a magical gift that your Aunt Carol had.

She had a way to make the people she loved feel special.

When you were with her, she saw YOU, and you could not help but feel you were the most important person in her world when around her.

Of course she ADORED you Ronnie. We all saw that. And that special love was yours, and you and Aunt Carol will only know what that was.

Because she and I had a special relationship that made me feel just as special.

And so did your Mother. 

And Susan. 

And everyone else that was close to her life.

We were all her favorite.”

Sounds odd and a little embarrasing to say it now, but at first I felt a little upset hearing this. Selfishly, my immediate recognition was “Well, I guess I wasn’t so special after all, was I?”. Shamefully, for a hot second I felt a little duped. But shortly after, and progressively over the years I’ve really come to understand what he meant.

Aunt Carol had a power to connect with us because she knew what made each of us unique. She understood and embraced our authenticity. She tuned into that. Deeply. And in the times she spent with each of us, she had a way of making us feel extra heard, extra listened to, and extra loved. She was genuinely, humanly interested, and would find small ways to show our connection that created something deeper. In these last few months (writing this during my transition phase), I’ve really come to appreciate how she the sowed seeds of a lot of what ‘belonging feels like.’ This Communitas feeling that I’ve sought out in my career and life. I have tried to recreate it with others, to perhaps capture and share a little of that magic both individually and as part of a larger team or group. With individual people/team members, finding and acknowledging something unique to our relationship and nurturing it.

And at the larger level of connection, Aunt Carol had this gentle purposeful way of bringing her favorite people together. All family gatherings were more than a meal with relatives. It was an experience. Seated together. All senses engaged: The Smell and Taste of so many dishes, with the preeminent two trays of Eggplant Parm . The Sounds and the Touch of loved ones with many loud voices, laughter and smothering hugs. And the Vision, the frenetically beautiful sight of it all. That’s where magic happens and lifelong memories are made. 

The real secret ingredient to Aunt Carol’s Eggplant Parm isn’t an extra ½ cup of oil, frying the eggplant on lower heat. The secret was how she made us feel when we were eating it.  Truth be told, my cousin Carolynne (Aunt Carol’s oldest daughter) makes an eggplant parm that, to the uninitiated, would taste identical. It wasn’t a spice, or a different amount of an ingredient, or how long the eggplant was fried. It was Aunt Carol’s magical gift of making all of us feel individually special … and feel special together sharing it with her. 

So what does this have to do with work? A lot, as it turns out.

Because I’ve endeavored to spend my career practicing her magic trick with those around me. As I’ve matured as a leader and colleague, I’ve attempted to find deeper ways to connect with others in my work life that feels a bit more intimate, more ‘special’, than just a closer work friend. To be crystal clear, this is as much for me as it is for them. 

I’ve been blessed with making meaningful connections with many people There’s plenty of people you will work with over the years, people that make you feel just a little extra special? Important? Valued? Supported? SEEN. HEARD. UNDERSTOOD. Special.

Here’s the thing…when you take the time to really sit back and consider people in your life - work or home - that make you feel this way, you’ll see more of them. With the hundreds if not thousands of connections you will have over decades, it’s logistically impossible to deeply connect with every single person you come in contact with. But if you are on a team, notably a leader of one, start there. Connect with those that work with you. Find ways to celebrate what makes the two of you something different than anyone else. Find the authenticity in others through your own. Find small ways to honor that. Practice a little Aunt Carol magic, and watch what might happen. 

I hope, if you’ve met me, if we worked on something together for any considerable amount of time, in those moments you felt a little extra special. I can list dozens of ‘inside things’ only one person reading this would ‘know’ as a cornerstone to our relationship. Every one of them were precious to me, and remain so. If you count yourself in that camp and you’re reading this, I hope you know what I mean. And if you do, then you already know the little secret.

You’re my favorite.