Quick note - my great aunt Edna passed away tonight at age 100. I got to visit with her a couple of days ago when she was still awake and lucid. It was nice and we shared some jokes and memories. I like that she joked right up till the end - thats a trait I hope to share with her. (Though admittedly she had the good taste to not do puns.) A long time ago - back when I was maybe 6 or 7 - a bird got into our house and my mother got very upset. My dad got the bird out of the house and but my older sister and I were scared because of how our mother acted about the whole thing. We wanted to know why she was so scared. She told in hushed tones that when a bird gets into the house it portends someones death. Terrified, my sister and I had to sleep in our parents bed, anxiously awaiting the inevitable visit of the grim reaper. Well, he didnt come that night or anytime soon. But years later, I read Lovecrafts The Dunwhich Horror and learned about psychopomps - animal omens of the spirit world. Today as I took my family to visit my great aunt, we walked into the house to find that a bird had gotten into the house. Oh no, I thought. Here we go with the bird omen stories. My family went on into the main part of the house and I carefully caught the bird and let it go outside. When I got into the house to see everyone there seemed to be no special interest in the fact that a bird had entered the house despite the fact that my aunt was on hospice care and not expected to last much longer. Finally I said, I caught a bird in the house and let it go. I steeled myself for the inevitable onslaught of omens, legends and mutterings. Instead one of my other aunts said, It has a hole it comes in and out of. Its in here all the time. So that happened. If my mom had any comments about the bird, she kept them to herself. Ill miss Edna - she was proud of me for doing this show and liked to hear about my research and writing. If she had an opinion about the content of my research she never mentioned it, but seemed to take pride that I was being creative and doing research. She was a teacher in her younger days, and taught at least three generations of folks in my hometown. She taught my mom and my best friends mom. She taught politicians and laborers, soldiers, artists, common folks - and she wanted them all to read books. And she loved to play card games and board games. She did puzzles and brain twisters. She gardened long after arthritis had gnarled her fingers into twisted caricatures of what theyd once been. She encouraged curiosity - and when I asked questions of her she didnt just blurt out an answer to tell me what she knew. She asked me what I thought - and wanted me to work to the answer. She never married, though there were rumors she once loved a guy. I never pried because it was really none of my business and she never brought it up so she probably didnt care to talk about it. But when her mother had grown too old to care for herself, she stayed and cared for her. Her mom lived just shy of 105. Her brother, my grandfather, is 98. He was there today waiting with her. He still reads too. We talked about ants and birds and other nature trivia. I saw a picture of him and his two brothers from 1936 all eating watermelon in front of the same house were were standing in. A couple of years ago I took someone out to his farm to visit and we found him out in the woods chopping firewood. Why not - you need firewood at 96, right? My dad helps him with that these days. Gamer, reader, thinker, amateur naturalist, cook, quilter, hugger - she was everything I could want from a great aunt. Shed have laughed at the psychopomp story if shed ever woken up again.
Posted on: Tue, 27 May 2014 02:57:39 +0000
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