She grew up poor as a church mouse but didn’t know it. She took in every stray cat there was within a country mile. She fiercely protected her brother with the stutter and the lazy eye. She walked a mile to catch the bus for the 40 mile round trip to school. She got a college education because that’s what her parents insisted of all of their kids…poor or not.

When she got her teaching degree, she moved to San Diego…alone. She worked in Cleveland when there were still separate drinking fountains that said “Colored” on them. She never understood why. She married a tall, handsome young man and they lived in Washington, DC. She worked in the first Head Start program. 

She was bright, neatly dressed, incredibly vain about her weight. When her husband’s heart forced him to retire early, they bought his grandparent’s farm and she worked in the country school down the road. She never had children of her own. She said she had 30 new children every year…she didn’t need more.

When her husband died unexpectedly in the middle of the night, she was stymied that she was so educated but had no idea how to perform CPR. And he was gone. In typical fashion, she pulled up her bootstraps and carried on. Two years later, she was having lunch at the country club when she caught the eye of the handsome man across the room. 

She soon married the hospital administrator and settled over on his farm not too far away. He didn’t really want her to work. He liked having her around. He loved to fish in Canada in places you could only access by plane. He sold his cattle every year to pay for the charter that took them to remote lakes. She was disciplined and exacting and so in love with this tall, dark man.

He found out his cancer was back in the spring of 1990. He wasn’t up for the fight again. He figured his number was up and he’d see how it played out. By August, he was gone. When you spoke to her about him, she would get wistful and her eyes would get misty. She said she wished she could have met him first. He was the love of her life. Once they buried him, she never went back.

A few months later, she moved over to her mother’s farm to care for her and that same brother she had fought to protect when they were children. She was the kind of woman who was used to giving the orders. When she said jump, people jumped and asked how far on the way up. She wasn’t up for small talk. She was an incredibly hard worker. She once painted the entire country church…inside and out…by herself. Because there was a young couple getting married.

Her mom passed and she stayed on to care for her brother till he, too, died peacefully in his sleep while she was upstairs reading. That one nearly broke her. She had been his champion. She had cared for everyone. And now, for the first time in her life, she was truly alone. She stayed in her mother’s home, living a simple frugal life. The weeks turned into years. She found herself staring down the abyss her life had become. Yet she didn’t move. Finally, it became apparent she was nearing that point she was going to need help herself.

That’s where I come in. 

She’s my aunt. The one I left Colorado to come help. She and I were oil and water. I knew that. But she had no children…no one to come help. And she had done so much for everyone, I felt an obligation to be there for her. For those of you who followed me at the time, you know how it went down. It was great for the first month. I worked hard on the farm…cutting and hauling brush, cleaning and fixing up the house. I did the laundry and shopping and cooking. Then winter set in.

We are both strong, independent women. And it wasn’t long till we were standing on each other’s very last nerve. She unceremoniously invited me to leave at Christmas and that set me out on another couple of years on the road with my camper. While I was living at the farm, we had a talk one day about nursing homes. She said, when she felt it was time, she would just pack up her bag and go over to the Minnie Hamilton Clinic and sign herself in. I had to explain to her that wasn’t how it worked. You had to be on a waiting list.

Three years ago, my aunt got so bad she couldn’t live alone anymore. Her brother came and took her home with him and I came off the road to live on the farm. My uncle was already taking care of his wife with dementia when my aunt began to slip into her own. His wife passed the day after Mr. FixIt and I got married. He has faithfully cared for his sister all this time, but it’s taking it’s toll and they had the talk.

In a lucid moment, she agreed it was time to go. She has recently been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She’s eighty-eight. Even though she loses herself more often, she still knew it was time.

When she and I were doing that dance on the farm, we didn’t know she was slipping into dementia. I’ve never known someone in the early stages. It can look like something completely different. We had always butted heads. But she lost her filter and I took it personally. I learned a lot from that experience. I gained a level of empathy and an appreciation for the power of confusion.

So, now she’s going to need to settle in. She did well the first night. The next morning the doctor woke her up and she attacked him with her walker. She’s a pistol alright. When they asked her if she wanted to be resuscitated, she got right up in their faces and said, “No way…I just want to waltz my way out of here all natural like.” 

I have no doubt she will.

❤️

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.””

James 4:14-15 NIV