I have had the pleasure of being raised in a family that provided a bountiful amount of female role models for me to admire. Like with everyone else, I sometimes did not realize everything those role models had done to help me until it was too late.

My parents are both the youngest amongst their siblings, which means their parents were sickly and elderly by the time I was really old enough to remember anything about them. My father lost his mother just after I was born, so I only ever knew one of my grandmother's.

What I didn't realize at the time was that my fathers' sister. Maryanne, affectionately referred to as Aunt Mairz, stepped up and held the family together. She was my aunt, but she was so much more than that. She pretty much became the "Nan In Training" for the family. She was the grandmother I never got to have.

She passed away the August before my senior year of high school from cancer.

If there is such thing as an angel on Earth, it would be this woman. She always put others before herself. As much as my parents demonstrated the same, something she did for my mom has always stuck with me. When my Aunt Mairz was extremely sick, my mom lost her father. I had lost another grandparent. Family and friends came to the viewing, as expected. What we did not expect was for Aunt Mairz to come, considering how sick she was at the time. But she did. I cannot imagine how exhausting that time was for her, but she did it anyway.

Because that's who she was.

When my family moved to the house we are in now, she (and many other family members) were here helping unpack boxes. She placed almost all of our dishes in the cabinets for the first time. Again, she didn't have to. But she did it anyway.

She taught me that even when you are in the worst situation you could ever have imagined yourself in, there is someone in the world going through more pain than you.

When she passed away, I was devastated. For me, it felt personal. The reason it felt personal is that a few months prior I held a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. It wasn't super successful, but it accomplished what I thought I wanted. I thought I wanted to just raise money and awareness. But in my young mind there was a direct correlation between my fundraiser and my aunt getting better. I was wrong.

I guess part of the reason I am writing this is for her grandchildren that will never have the chance to know her. They know what their parents and Grandfather say. I thought they would like to know from another source how amazing of a Nan they had. They're all too young to read this and fully understand how much she did for me. She helped me let go of a lot of anger and resentment that was blocking my faith. Words can never express how grateful I am for that.