What I’d say….

This month has been one full of many emotions. I’ve made many changes and my life has had some major changes thrown in it as well. Starting my job was a big change. First week was an adjustment. Second week I got hit with a throat punch and honestly I questioned a lot of my choices, peoples loyalty and I then realized my aunt was not going to make it much longer. Funny the choices and the people’s loyalty didn’t seem to matter. I realized in that moment I had nothing to say. The lady who humiliated me in a crowd of 20, the friends who called me to tell me and yet I had nothing.

My mom was spending a lot of time with my aunt and my world was in chaos. My aunt was dying. My craziest, toughest aunt was going to lose her battle and I had nothing to say. I could not go see her. Seeing her meant I had to be in some kind of reality. Deal with the fact that she wouldn’t call me when she couldn’t find mom. Call me when mom wasn’t making her appointment fast enough. Come visit and my girls would get so excited to see her. So if I didn’t go I didn’t have to deal. I’m an avoider if I’m anything…

Well like life time marched on and today we buried her. She got her healing on the other side. Met by her husband, my nanny and a list of others. I can imagine the excitement she must have felt. She is healed now. Back here it was not so easy. We have to learn our new normal. Each one of us had a different relationship with my aunt so everyone’s story will be different. To some she was the confidant, others their defender, some their hero…to some she was just their mom or grandmother or sister. To me she was my aunt. This is what I’d say…

Her house was always open but rarely neat. She cooked but perhaps you’d find a pot on the stove from last nights meal. She was a talker. You could always find her and my mom or whoever sitting at the kitchen table and laughing and telling stories from days gone by. She kept her ketchup in the cabinet but she had the best snacks I’d ever seen. Always had chocolate on hand. She had the biggest closets and the first satellite dish I’d ever seen. She could tell you whatever you wanted to know about genealogy. She wasn’t a big shopper until her later years but she was always up for anything even if she didn’t feel well. She loved children and she opened her home to countless foster children until she finally adopted Lisa. She was a boys mom and she could hang with anyone in any conversation you threw at her. She loved her family and she loved Jesus. She loved my mom and she was her best friend. I’m jealous of the love sisters have and I know my moms course of her life will be forever changed.

I think if I could go back a few weeks I’d say a few things different. I’d had called her and told her more than just I love you. I’d have said you made a mark on my life that will never be erased. You kicked cancers ass harder then anyone else could and although you got tired you went out on your terms. You raised some good kids. All did right by you and you can go knowing they’ll keep you alive by telling their favorite stories of you. You believed in me. You told me often that I was a lot like you. I think I’ll never be as strong as you were but I take it as the greatest compliment. Everyone knew where they stood with you. I love that. You knew how to love but you knew how to forgive. Those are hard to combine. You made my childhood and my friends childhoods memorable (Except when I colored your tub red with food dye..not a good memory).

So I know you’d say in this life if you are living people will be talking. You’d say let them talk about you because I love you and I believe in you. You’d say God has blessed you with people who love you and who know your worth. I saw it in the calls, texts and the people who made the drive for only hours to celebrate you. Because they loved you!! You were loved Mary Ann. You make heaven sweeter. You also make it more sassy. “Caladora” as you called her and Catie Bell will miss you tremendously. Thank you for loving them like your own. I’ll tell your stories and I’ll stand a little taller because you were my aunt. I am thankful for the seat I had beside you on our “journey of life”…