This week my family lost a truly beloved member. My aunt Katie Ten Eyck passed quietly in her sleep on January 7th, 2023 after being diagnosed with brain cancer last summer. Since then, I’ve been struggling to find the right words I desperately want to write down to describe how much she means to me.
My aunt was so much more than someone I saw occasionally during family gatherings. She was a musician, a creative and a nurturer. She was a pillar in her family, filled with a genuine love and an interest in others. For the purpose of this blog though, I will tell you how she encouraged my aspirations of working with chimpanzees.
My aunt, uncle and cousin opened their home to me after I graduated college and got the next best thing to a job – an unpaid internship at the Oregon Zoo . I lived with them, rent free, in the fall of 2011 as I scrubbed enclosures, chopped produce, and commuted on the light rail for hours on end. My aunt cooked me dinner every night before my ridiculously early (but extremely necessary) bedtime. She listened to my work stories, visited the primates “behind the scenes” with me and overall took a genuine interest in my dreams.
When I accepted a caregiver job offer from the Fauna Foundation, she eagerly read the Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary right along with me. After I moved back to the northwest and joined the staff at CSNW it came as no surprise to anyone that she started to read and comment on the blog from time to time.
I love that I can search through the comments on our blog and still find a few snippets of her voice, preserved for all to read. Not only is this blog a diary of sanctuary life, but it seems to have also become a time capsule filled with love and kindness. For now, I’ll lay a few memories of my dear kind aunt in this beautiful digital time capsule.
Thanks for the support Aunt Katie. All my love.
-Anna
