Tag Archives: aunt

Mar5

Giving It Up For Lent

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When I give something up, I gain something else…

I spent the afternoon yesterday visiting with Aunt Helen and her kids, my cousins Lisa and Mike.  It was a much-needed visit with family I don’t get to see nearly often enough.  For years we have run into each other most frequently at the funeral home, and that is a situation I think we all would like to change.  After some recent events in each of our lives, we might be more likely to make time for visits like yesterday.

I remarked yesterday that I collected feathers but I had not found one in a while, and I was looking forward to springtime when the birds are more active and there might be more feathers to find.  In an interesting bit of timing and providence, today on the first day of Lent,  I found my first feather in months.  It’s not a pretty one.  It’s kind of dirty and pitiful, actually, enough to make me wonder what the little bird might have suffered in the process of dropping it.

But I didn’t think twice about picking it up and adding it to the others I have gathered over the last few years.  It’s pitiful, but I will give it a home.  As Lent commences, I think about how pitiful I am, but God has given me a home even in my pitiful state.  Many religious traditions encourage their adherents to give up various indulgences during Lent, or to take on some extra project to enhance one’s spiritual life.  A couple of times during Lent I have written letters to people telling them how much they mean to me.  It turned out to be a study in gratitude that blessed me more than it blessed the recipients.

Several years ago I decided to read the C.S. classic “Mere Christianity”.  It took time that I could have used tor other pursuits, but what I gained from reading it far outweighed the time I invested.  This year, in addition to eating more sensibly, I have decided it’s time for more C.S. Lewis during Lent, and the book I’ve chosen is “The Problem of Pain”.  I am certain that God led me to this particular book for a reason; after enduring Aunt Ruby’s death last summer and watching numerous friends lose their loved ones, especially parents, in the last several months, suffering has been very present in my world.

Jesus told us that in this world our lives would be filled with trouble.  He never promised is that we would not suffer.  What He did promise is that we would not suffer alone; He is with us in our pain.  As I give up pieces of my time to do extra reading during Lent, I am trusting that God has something for me to gain through that investment.  He always does.

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(the opening page before the preface to “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis, and the sad little feather I found today)

Jan23

Aunt Ruby’s Dream

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Home Places and listening to my instincts…

Tuesday, July 23, 2013 was a monthly in-service at the hospice where I volunteer. The morning was muggy and humid so instead of pants I wore a lightweight dress with a cardigan over it, and the outfit turned out to be cute. Plus it was a great hair day, so the morning started off on a bright note. The thought crossed my mind that I ought to go and check in on Aunt Ruby after in-service was over.

At our in-service I was able to see Glenda, a lovely friend who was in my volunteer training group back in 2009 and with whom I had shared Monday afternoons at the hospice until our schedules changed and we rarely ran into each other anymore. We even had our picture made together that day, and it is a treasure to me for a number of reasons. We had a wonderful visit and caught up on each other’s lives as best we could in the time we had together.

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My outfit was cute, my hair looked good, and visiting with Glenda had filled my heart with happiness. Something inside my happy heart kept telling me, “You should go and see Aunt Ruby while you’re out today.” After I left the hospice I did a little shopping, and I found a very cute pair of faux-suede boots with a plush fur lining on sale for a ridiculous price. The stores had already started putting out their fall stock, and as hot as the day was, I could look at those boots and dream about the cooler weather that would eventually come. Pulling out of the mall parking lot, my spirit once again tugged at me. ”Go and see Aunt Ruby while you’re out today. You NEED to go and see her.” So I whipped my car back toward the north end of town and headed to the assisted living where Aunt Ruby had spent the last several months, her new home.

When I arrived she was sitting on the end of a sofa, napping, as had become her daily post-lunch routine. I sat down next to her and she opened her eyes and smiled before I even said hello, scooping her into a big hug. Her eyesight was very poor but I was close enough to her that she could recognize me even before she heard my voice. That smile and that hug made me very happy that I had listened to my instincts and gone on to visit with her. But our conversation held other blessings— mixed, prophetic ones.

At one point during our visit she said, “You know, I had the most unusual dream last night.” I asked her what she had dreamed about and she said, “I dreamed about Mother and Daddy and the old home place.”

“Really?” I asked. ”Was it a good dream? What all do you remember about it?”

She said, “Oh, it was a nice dream. I just dreamed that we were all there together again, the kids and everybody, and we were all so happy.”

With a lump in my throat and a queasy stomach, I said, “It sounds wonderful.  I’m glad you had such a happy dream.”

She said, “Oh I am too, it was so nice to be with everybody again.”

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Less than 3 weeks later she had her massive stroke and was gone, at the advanced age of 88, and yet still so suddenly.   When I visited with her at the assisted living that muggy Tuesday and she shared her dream with me, I realized that she was getting closer to going Home, but I didn’t realize just how close she was.  I believe that wonderful dream of hers was God’s way of preparing her for Heaven and the trip she would be making there very soon…sooner than any of us ever expected.

For a number of years, every time we’ve gone on a vacation, I’ve had the niggling thought in the back of my mind that something might happen to Aunt Ruby while we were gone and we might have to make a frantic trip back home. Obviously I don’t have to think about that any longer. She is Home now, and I believe she is experiencing the scene from her dream, reunited with her parents and the rest of the family in a new, yet somehow familiar,  Home Place.

Nov1

Piercing Memories

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Style, substance and sentiment…

Aunt Ruby pierced my ears the first time when I was 7 or 8 years old.  I don’t remember exactly when she did it, but I remember the setting vividly.  I sat at the end of the kitchen table in the house on Arnold Street.  She rubbed my earlobes with alcohol while Mama looked on, probably expecting me to change my mind at the last minute.  After each earlobe was sterilized, Aunt Ruby took a blue ballpoint Bic Stic pen and marked a spot on one ear and then the other, making sure they were straight and even.  After this, she sterilized her sewing machine needle with alcohol and poked holes in my lobes as quickly as possible, (she never bothered with trying to numb them using ice cubes) inserting a pair of her own 14-karat gold stud earrings as my starter pair.   She had cleaned them with alcohol as well, and instructed me to twist the posts around several times a day and to dab more alcohol around them daily to avoid infection while they healed.  I was not to remove or change earrings for 6 weeks, again, to minimize the risk of infection.

I remember that it hurt a little, but it was not too bad, and there was only a tiny little bit of blood.  Most of the shots I’ve had in doctors’ offices have hurt worse than getting my ears pierced.  I couldn’t wait for my Daddy to come home from work so I could show him my newly pierced ears.  I felt very grown-up and sophisticated, like I had taken a step toward adult ladyhood.

Mama always joked that her body would reject anything that was not at least 14-karat gold, and she always wore good earrings because her ears were sensitive.  And she insisted on my wearing good earrings as well to avoid irritation and infection.  She began to build me a small but good quality jewelry collection and taught me how to appreciate and care for good earrings, rings and necklaces.  Once I got older and realized that my ears were less sensitive than hers were, I ventured into the world of fashion or “costume” jewelry.  I’ve even been known to wear colorful thumb tacks in my ears if they matched an outfit!

When I left for my freshman year of college, I received 2 pairs of earrings as gifts.  From Dad I received a pair of gold ball studs to go with the add-a-bead necklace Mama had been adding to for me (they were all the rage at the time).  And my brother, Reed, gave me a pair of small, beautiful pearl stud earrings almost exactly like the ones of Mama’s that I had borrowed so many times for dressy occasions.

Summer after my junior year of college I had Aunt Ruby pierce my ears a second time.  I was engaged and my sweet husband-to-be had given me 2 pairs of earrings while we were dating, and I knew I wanted to wear both pairs on our wedding day.  Once again, I sat at the end of Aunt Ruby’s kitchen table with alcohol, Bic Stic pen, and sewing machine needle at the ready, the accoutrements of the familiar ritual of piercing and bonding.  Again there was a sting and a bit of blood, and the familiar instructions for keeping my new piercings infection-free.  This was June of 1985.  I remember the date because a friend from school got married the next week and she noticed my new piercings at the reception.

Flash forward 20 years to 2005.  It was October and the weather was cooling off.  Aunt Ruby was 80 years old at this point and her eyesight was failing.  I’d been wanting one last piercing in my left ear for quite a while and I figured I’d better go ahead and have her do it before she got to the point that she couldn’t anymore.  This last ritual did not take place at the kitchen table on Arnold Street.  Aunt Elaine’s husband was dying with cancer, and Aunt Ruby was staying with them for comfort and moral support.  So my last piercing happened in Aunt Elaine’s bathroom.  It was, I am positive, Aunt Ruby’s last piercing as well.  She didn’t have the hand strength she had enjoyed when she was younger, and she had a little more trouble getting the sewing machine needle through my earlobe.  Again, a little sting and a bit of blood, piercing and bonding.

I am very sentimental about my piercings because of the stories behind them.  Aunt Ruby pierced countless ears of family members and neighborhood girls (and the occasional boy).  Each earring has a story as well.  Some were Mama’s, some gifts from The Aunts, some from Jeff, my sweet husband.

And you might ask, why 5 piercings and not 6?  It’s a good question.  The best answer is that I’ve always felt a little bit askew, like nothing about me really “matched”.  The 5th piercing reminds me that it’s OK to be a little off-center, a little quirky.  Aunt Ruby loved me, quirkiness and all.

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