I know sometimes it can be cheesy to go on a website and vent personal things, but sometimes it's a good cathartic thing to do.
I have an aunt, my mom's sister. Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia is about as giving as a human can be. She lives in a small Louisiana town where the strangers still wave and smile as they wait at the 4-way stop signs. She has opened her home to countless (at least 50 at last count) children who needed a home for a day or a year or more. She continued to coach little league when her only child was a grown man. She's driven the county school bus, volunteered for the local doctor, the local vet, the nursing home, the local drug store, and several local churches. She's taken in ailing relatives and nurse them in their last days.
She holds a special place in my heart because she's that one special relative that made me feel "right." Right about myself, about my choices, about my insecurities, about my hopes. Almost everyone has that one relative that seems to not only accept the things about them that challenge others ...but they also love you almost exclusively because of those very things. In my case, Aunt Suzi, as I call her, has always loved my opinionated attitude, my boisterous nature, my off the cuff "artsy moments" , as she calls my catastrophic nervous breakdowns. She is the aunt who gifts me jewelry that only she and I would like. She and I share many of the same challenges healthwise, with only children and miscarriages, hysterectomies at a young age. Etc. She is the one person who helped me reidentify who I was after my life changed through those challenges.
Aunt Suzi is everyone's aunt. Everyone in town knows her. Everyone loves her. I was lucky enough to be the niece that she claimed as the daughter she never had. I am closer to her than I am to my own mother. I feel a bond with her that will never be matched with another.
And she's dying.
She has cancer. Lungs, brain, blood, back.
It's everywhere.
And after a year long battle, her doctor told us today that it's terminal. She has only a few weeks left with us. And as I sit here, dumbfounded, I don't know what on earth I will do when she goes.
So now she's medicated to ease her pain, and she's spending her days in a bed at the cancer center in TX. She's not aware. She's resting, and remembering things at sporadic moments. My hope is that when she does go, it will be as painlessly as possible, and that love will embrace her somehow when she arrives at her destination.
It hurts. I'm angry. I'm sad. And I want her damaged body to get better though I know that's not going to happen.
I just wanted to take a minute to share her with someone new before she leaves this world. She's a wonderful woman. If you have a moment, would you just send a good thought her way? We'd appreciate it very much.
Jo
I have an aunt, my mom's sister. Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia is about as giving as a human can be. She lives in a small Louisiana town where the strangers still wave and smile as they wait at the 4-way stop signs. She has opened her home to countless (at least 50 at last count) children who needed a home for a day or a year or more. She continued to coach little league when her only child was a grown man. She's driven the county school bus, volunteered for the local doctor, the local vet, the nursing home, the local drug store, and several local churches. She's taken in ailing relatives and nurse them in their last days.
She holds a special place in my heart because she's that one special relative that made me feel "right." Right about myself, about my choices, about my insecurities, about my hopes. Almost everyone has that one relative that seems to not only accept the things about them that challenge others ...but they also love you almost exclusively because of those very things. In my case, Aunt Suzi, as I call her, has always loved my opinionated attitude, my boisterous nature, my off the cuff "artsy moments" , as she calls my catastrophic nervous breakdowns. She is the aunt who gifts me jewelry that only she and I would like. She and I share many of the same challenges healthwise, with only children and miscarriages, hysterectomies at a young age. Etc. She is the one person who helped me reidentify who I was after my life changed through those challenges.
Aunt Suzi is everyone's aunt. Everyone in town knows her. Everyone loves her. I was lucky enough to be the niece that she claimed as the daughter she never had. I am closer to her than I am to my own mother. I feel a bond with her that will never be matched with another.
And she's dying.
She has cancer. Lungs, brain, blood, back.
It's everywhere.
And after a year long battle, her doctor told us today that it's terminal. She has only a few weeks left with us. And as I sit here, dumbfounded, I don't know what on earth I will do when she goes.
So now she's medicated to ease her pain, and she's spending her days in a bed at the cancer center in TX. She's not aware. She's resting, and remembering things at sporadic moments. My hope is that when she does go, it will be as painlessly as possible, and that love will embrace her somehow when she arrives at her destination.
It hurts. I'm angry. I'm sad. And I want her damaged body to get better though I know that's not going to happen.
I just wanted to take a minute to share her with someone new before she leaves this world. She's a wonderful woman. If you have a moment, would you just send a good thought her way? We'd appreciate it very much.
Jo
