IMAGES OF AUNTIE AND SO MUCH MORE

When we got to the funeral home for visitation, I enjoyed reminiscing by watching the images of Auntie and others looping through a digital photo frame. Some I had never seen, but I knew everyone in the pictures.  

When I got to that part in my story, I thought about pictures that I have taken of Auntie. Right now I really hate that I don't have all my photos organized. Because of that, I can't share so many pictures I have.  

One picture I saw that night and brought a smile to my face was a picture of Auntie and me after we had finished making her "Double knit Quilt". We had so much fun that week and the quilt was so beautiful. Right now I can't find that picture.  When I do, though, I will share it with you.  

I guess it is good that I don't have my pictures organized because my scanner isn't working right now, either. But I will share the digital photos I have found.

After my parents died, I would go back each summer and visit her. I also started calling her every week...usually on Sundays. Here are some of the pictures I took on some of those visits.

Auntie loved to crochet....actually all three of the "sisters" (my mother, Auntie, and Corine) crocheted.  Auntie could look at a piece of work and tell me which one of them had made it. Here is a picture of her I took the summer of 2004.

Later in her kitchen. She was a good cook, just like her sisters.











At least once or twice during the week of my visit, we would be sitting in her living room and she would say, "If you want to, we will ride over to Sister's (that was her grandaugther Carol, aka "Little Carol") and check on the boys ( Carol's sons, her Great Grandsons)".  We didn't call first or anything. She would say that they might not be there, but we would see. Sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't.  Here is a picture I took when we went over later that day. 

Hunter, their Great-grandmother, and Cole

Here is a picture of her and Jim that I took that visit.












In July, 2005 during my visit, we went to Little Rock to Clinton's Presidential Library. It was a hot day that day but we really enjoyed ourselves. Her daughter "Sissy" and Marie (Corine's daughter) also went. (The three of us, all daughters of the three sisters, were raised like sisters.)

Marie, Auntie, and Sissy

Back home in Louisiana we enjoyed watermelon with the "boys".

David (Sissy's husband), Auntie, Cole, Jim, and Sissy

She was making sure all the seeds were out for Cole. That's how caring she was.

After I went back home to CA, I made my first rag quilt and decided to give it to Auntie. It was folded on the back of "her" chair in her living room when we were there for her services.









In 2006, when my husband and I retired, we took a road trip and visited most of our relatives. These pictures were taken at my Uncle J.D.'s, in my hometown in Southeast AR at a family get-together.  

Auntie and Corine, the two surviving sisters...

Aunt Nita (my Uncle James' wife), Aunt Virginia ( J. D.'s wife), Auntie, and Corine.  I think it is interesting that I grew up calling all adults Mr. or Miss (their first name), but  I didn't call any of my uncles "Uncle" and only three aunts "Aunt"....Auntie Gert, and then the wives of two of my mother's brothers...Aunt Virginia and Aunt Nita. Aunt Nita's name is Juanita but most of the family call her "Neat"....at least that's the way we pronounce it. I should also add that we pronounce Aunt as if it were "ain't". I have never called Corine - Aunt Corine...it just didn't sound good.

and then Auntie, Jim, and Corine...

Here is a picture that was taken in 2009 on one of my visits of the two of us.

The next year in their back yard.














Last year when we went for a visit, I took her two quilts I had machine quilted. They were quilt tops that she had made and I took them home to "finish" them for her. She was so pleased with them.

Here is one of them....














This post has been difficult to write.....so many emotions felt, so much frustration in not being able to find pictures I wanted to share, and so much I want to say, but the words just won't come. Just like my mother, Auntie was a very special person and I feel a great sense of loss. With the onset of her dementia the last couple of years, I experienced a little loss with each Sunday conversation when she wasn't fully "herself".  

I didn't want to hang up on the occasions when she was having a good day. I remember when we talked the Sunday before my grandson Tyler was born a little over a year ago. She started the conversation with, "Do we have a baby yet?" I knew it was going to be a good "visit" and it was. I miss those Sunday calls and the calls during the week when something happened that I wanted to share with her.

But I'm not the only one missing her...