I remember when I got my first fur coat. I was 11, and had gone to visit my father in Scotland. He had recently abandoned our family in favor of the old country - something I didn't mind at the time but now see as a mistake. I liked going to Scotland - I would fly overnight to Prestwick, and my Auntie Peggy would pick me up with my father. She, of course, doing the driving.

My father was the youngest of a clan of eight children, and the only boy. He served in WWII, at D-Day, so my relatives were all WWII survivors. In fact, many of my aunties became nurses.

Aunt Peggy, probably the fiercest of the seven, had been living with a family and nursing the aging mother as she (the mother), well, cast off this mortal coil. I arrived groggy in Scotland and was taken to that home, where I was given a snack and then put to bed. The next morning, I was given my first fur coat - muskrat.

The woman had died a few days before I arrived, and being the American cousin and child, I was given the best bed in the house. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was the death bed, but at the same time understand the practicality of the whole thing. The fur coat became something of a joke, as I wore it around every day.

I then proceeded to bring it back to America and wore it every day (well only in the colder months), much to my mothers chagrin. She was not overly fond of my ability to look like a small homeless person.

Years later, I was helping my Mom clean out her home and we came upon my grandmother's fur coats. Purchased probably in the 1920's, they scream political incorrectness. One is made from baby seals, the other from a leapord. I like to trot them out on occasion, wondering if someone will throw a gallon of red paint at me. Otherwise, they sit in the closet, waiting for my darling cats to find them and rub against them - as if they might come back to life.

I'm not a fur coat kind of gal. Nor would I have ever chosen to wear a diamond. When exactly did I get invited to this costume party?

I do wear my grandmothers ring - given to me by my mothers' sisters. It's called a "tea ring". The story, as much as I know it, goes something like this. My fierce grandmother, who I never knew (she died when I was two) was upset that a relative had died and not left her a ring she felt she deserved. My grandfather, who was probably slightly scared of her, went and bought her a beautiful diamond ring to make up for the one that was lost to her.

This grandmother drove ambulances in America during the war, but then had to go back to being a housewife. I don't think she ever got over it.

I find the ring story funny, as I think about all the matriarchs I have lost. I never wanted a fur coat or a diamond ring. My radical feminist nature rejects those symbols. Yet, I ended up with four diamond rings (five if we count my mothers engagement ring) and three fur coats.

My Aunt Martha, second  to last of the Scottish aunties, died two months ago. I have been losing relatives at an alarming rate, I know. Martha was pretty much my least favorite of the aunties, and the feeling was mutual. They were all very strict, to a certain degree, but Martha seemed to really dislike my rejection of all things feminine. I mean, sure, I went through phases of high heels and makeup, but eventually ended up in fat pants and a t-shirt.

Martha was only one of two aunties who married. All the boys went off to war and died, leaving quite a few maiden aunties to worry about their siblings offspring. Martha, who never had children, would always swan in and pass judgement on her sisters. Who were doing things that thrilled me as an American visitor - trotting to the butcher and buying slabs of meat and hacking it up for dinner, doing laundry in washtubs and hanging it in the yard to dry. I was amazed by the whole thing - coming from a culture where meat was purchased in packages and everyone had central heating and a dryer. Who were these tiny women who seemed to know how to do everything?

They dressed in woolens for the most part. I seem to recall a lot of tweed and A-line skirts and sensible hosiery and brogues. They were basically hobbits. I recall their hands, totally unadorned and chafed from doing whatever the chores were that day.

I suppose I'm trying to figure out who, among these dead women, I am more like? Probably the hobbits, although my rejection of fashion has not gone quite so far as to wrap myself in tweed. Not yet, anyway. (Polar fleece was not invented back then.)

Maybe I'm like all of them. I know I'm like my mother's mother, or so I have been told. She may have been a pioneering feminist who was born before her time. She made sure her daughters got educations before husbands. She also had practical hands, as proven by her handicrafts that surround me.

I'm like my mother sometimes. It is impossible to not be. I have her sense of memory of course.

 I feel lucky to have been raised by such a tribe of women, all of them.

I have my Aunt Jeannie's sense of humor, in a way. Aunt Joyce's tendency to worry. Aunt Peggy's fervor. Aunt Mary's sense of irony. Aunt Jennie's melancholy. And Aunt Martha's ring.