An Auntie with wings

We slipped quietly into the room at the nursing home, purposely not wanting to make a noisy arrival. My Mom reached for her baby sister’s hand and patted and asked how she was feeling on that chilly, sunny Saturday morning.

Had your coffee and donut this morning, sis? Brought you some visitors. Ol’ Joey boy and his fiancé came down from Indianapolis, and Kris’ boy, Logan, are here today.

I moved to the side of her bed, knelt and gently entwined my fingers with hers. Hey, don’t bother to get up. Just thought since we were in town we’d stop by to say howdy,” I said. Her right upper lip lifted a bit and she squeezed my hand. She understood my weak joke.

Fine, good, she whispered.

A million-eleventy megazillion thoughts were pouring through my memories and emotions as we clasped fingers. Here reclined a tiny woman who taught me at an early age some fundamental yet effective curse words and appropriate PG-13 responses to what life throws at us. A person who has spoken her mind since her first birthing scream; who has loved her children, family, and other inner circles with unbridled passion; and one who largely has lived a life on her terms, yet acquiescing as we all must do from time to time.

When I was kid, she would drive kids wildly around town, all of us flopping around like crash-test dummies long before seatbelts were even a consideration, taking us to swimming pools, Dog ‘n Suds and other important venues like the Columbia Theater in Evansville, Ind., where many parents took their kids on Sundays after church so that these couples might catch a rare “afternoon delight.”

In later years, she would mop up my face after a schoolyard fight and promise not to tell my folks.

Animals? She loves them all, great and small. This tomboy Dr. Doolittle embedded a lifelong disdain for cats in my Mama, when, as a child, she threw one on her. But that joke never broke their sisterly yoke.

She has lived in houses, mobile homes and apartments too many to count, but wherever she is home. These days, it is in a nursing home and under  hospice care.  

Her room is decorated with photographs and mementoes from her 79 years on our fragile, spinning orb: Her kids, my cousins – Debbie, Pam, Fred and Keith – her grandchildren and others. There’s even a framed shot of her and her sibs and their spouses taken in Mama’s backyard not all that many years ago, mugging at the camera and arms over each others’ shoulders. They had just finished looking over old family photos when their posed image was shot.  

Most have passed away, as have her parents and her two husbands, so long ago. Each so different. They were prepped early in life for good and ill; all of them resurrecting their best from the misery of the Great Depression. I miss them all and cherish the memories they conjure

I patted my dear Auntie’s head when my words were losing fuel.

Don’t touch my head. You’re messing up my hair.

I chuckled and ran my knuckles over my slick scalp. 

My cousins, Pam and Freddy, return after a brief respite. Their vigil these last several days has been constant and shows on their faces. We hug and make small chat and such. Talk about the old days. They tend to their Mama with the same resolve.

As we began to leave, I held her fingers again and kissed the greatest Auntie the Almighty ever created on the forehead.

I love you and will see you soon!

Another slight grin and a whispered response: Home.

Indeed, home. Wherever we are or wish we could be in this world. But in that place of the sweet by and by,  I know there are folks eagerly awaiting to welcome her home. 

Standing side by side with that wonderful, warm Kentucky bluegrass beneath their feet.