Remembering My Aunt

I need to preface this blog with… the allergy thing I have going on. I have felt weird all week and it is just now evident that it is allergies, yuck. My mind is numb.

I took a nap when I got home from work… it has been a long week and when I am dragging like I am, longer. My mom woke me up. (flash back to childhood) She told me my Aunt Margaret passed away this afternoon about 1 p.m. ET. My aunt was the youngest of my father’s siblings and one of my favorite aunts because she was a fun person. A quality I love in people, maybe because of people in my family like my aunt. She lived into her 80’s. She had a long and fairly healthy life. The last few years she developed Alzheimer disease. This only became apparent to the family about a year ago. She has been in a nursing home and for the last 48 hours under hospice care. Not bad, I think. She lived on her own for years, I could call her independent. She laughed a lot, had a player piano and collected rug beaters. She was married 3 times; divorced once and widowed twice. She always had a least 3 poodles which were her babies. She lived in East Dayton and no one could get her to leave her house, even though the neighborhood became a less than desirable place to live. We worried about her a lot.

Things I loved about her. She was one of the people responsible for me being an artist. When I was in 4th grade I did a watercolor and I showed it to her. She made over it and told the family I was an artist. I mean the all my aunts and uncles. She never had children of her own so she often brought my grandmother over to our house. All four of us West girls would go with my aunt and grandma to Big Boy and eat and, you know, misbehave. My Aunt taught me to shoot my straw. We would laugh the whole time we were there. We had a three slurp rule. We were only allowed to slurp our drinks three times. Do the math, multiply that by 6 and you see why we giggled our way through lunch. Then there was playing spoons and the Elephant Club, whose secret I am sworn by fear of death to not reveal. But if you want to join the Elephant Club in honor my Aunt Margaret I just must let you in, special.

We used to have lots of family picnics where we spit watermelon seeds (contest) and made homemade ice cream.

When I was in Ohio my dad took us to the gravesite to show me where my grandmother is buried and my Uncle Gene. There will be a graveside service on Saturday, so I have it in my mind where the family will be gathered.