In memory of fran... 

I just returned home from a looonng and exhausting day spent at the funeral home and cemetery. My 86-year-old aunt passed from this life about 2am Sunday after an arduous last couple of years, and an especially difficult last couple of months. She had been hospitalized 5 times since the first of November, battling COPD, emphysema and congestive heart failure. When she entered the hospital last week with pneumonia, it quickly became evident that this would be her last hospitalization, and her body eventually had enough and shut down.

Our family kept a round-the-clock vigil from Thursday forward, with someone being by her side virtually the entire time. When her middle daughter (who had been her primary care-giver for the past 12 years) left the hospital Saturday night for just a few hours to shower, change and catch a quick nap, she told her mom, "Now don't you go anywhere until I get back."  And in a final act of defiance, my aunt waited until everyone had left to draw her last breath and leave this life.

It is still hard to envision my aunt as an 86-year-old who had a myriad of health problems which eventually took her life, because I will always remember her as the "cool" aunt whom I have tried to pattern my life after. She loved sports, as both spectator and participant, and was quick to instill that love in her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She also had the most extensive collection of classical music I've ever seen, and indulged me spending hours at a time, lying in the middle of her living floor, listening to her albums. An avid fisherman, she had won several tournaments down through the years, and had even won a top-of-the-line fully tricked-out bass boat as top prize in one of the bigger tournaments. She and her second husband were also pilots, and they shared ownership of a twin-engine Cessna with several other couples. She was part of the Civil Air Patrol, and on occasion would fly commercial to pick up a plane, and then fly it to it's destination. She is the only person I know personally who survived a plane crash; she was piloting a plane for delivery when a sudden wind sheer forced her down on approach at the head of the runway. The new plane was totaled, but she walked away from the wreckage and was cleared of any error once the FAA investigation was completed.

She was fun-loving, raucous, often ribald, but always about FAMILY. Very few families nowadays extend past 3 or possibly 4 generations at most, but my favorite photo of my aunt is the one of her, her daughter, her granddaughter, her great-grandson, and her great-great-grandson. Five generations. In all, she had 3 daughters, 11 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson. She was a strong female - a true matriarch - and she has given rise to a family inhabited by strong females, of which I am proud to be numbered. And it was these very females who planned and carried out one of the most personal and meaningful memorial services of which I have ever been a part.

The eulogy I delivered contained this particular story which I feel summed up her life. I remember back to one spring when I was a little girl; our area has always been plagued by tornadoes and damaging weather, but this particular storm was worse than most. In that one weekend, my aunt's apartment roof was blown away, the hangar collapsed, her plane was flipped and the wings torn off, and her boat dock and bass boat sank.  When I expressed my dismay, she said, "Aww, it's just "stuff." We'll replace it. Or we won't." I remembered thinking to myself: "Wow, she must be rich."  But as I grew older and came to appreciate the special place she and her family occupy in my life, and as I looked out on that sea of faces gathered to honor her, I see how rich she truly was.