Earlier today I received some expected, but unwanted, news. My great-aunt passed away last night. Aunt Janet is my mom's aunt but we never thought of her as anything other than an aunt. For the past few years her health had been getting worse and since the summer she's been in the hospital and a care facility because they were unsure if she would ever be able to live at home again. It seems that we all had missed the strokes that she had been having, because let's face it, we all didn't visit as much as we used to. Over the past few days she'd had numerous strokes and her body couldn't handle it and it lead to her passing away last night. My mom said that when she spoke to Aunt Janet last week she knew that there wasn't much longer because she had lost most of the ability to speak...and let me tell you...could she ever talk your ear off! I asked if there were going to be any plans for us all getting together, because I would need to tell my husband to take leave from work, but my aunt had decided that she wanted to be cremated and not have any sort of memorial service. She wanted to have it all taken care of very fast and without any fuss. Ever since I got off the phone with my mom I've been thinking about all the time I spent with my aunt as a kid. Staying over her house so my parents could go out on a "date", staying with her when my parents went on vacation for my dad's job or just stopping by hang out with her even with I was an adult. I always felt bad for her because she and my uncle (who passed away when I was a freshman in college) had never had kids and I knew she liked when my sister and I were there. But, I also think she really like just being an aunt and knowing that we ultimately went home, which meant she could spoil us as much as she wanted and didn't have to deal with the craziness of getting over a sugar rush. Lately I've been singing to my son something that we sang with my aunt whenever we needed to put our shoes on...'put your shoes on lucy don't you know you're in the city!' It's the little things like that which will live in my memory of Aunt Janet, I don't know if I even have pictures of her around because she liked seeing everyone else in pictures but don't you even think of pointing it at her...lol!. I'm going to miss you a lot Aunt Janet, may you rest in peace.