A Special Person: Memories

My Aunt Helen died this week, after hovering between life and death for two weeks in a coma. As I've been reliving some of the memories of time spent with her as a child and talking with family members about her I've wanted to write down thoughts about her and times spent with her.

Frist, some memories...
On holidays, our family would travel to visit grandparents and cousins, sometimes visiting both sides of the family in the same trip. The most special times to me, though, were the days during the summer that I got to spend with my maternal grandparents on their farm. Besides being a place of refuge and freedom for me, with all the fascinations that a farm has for a child who doesn't live on one, the most wonderful thing about it was that my aunt, Helen, lived there too. I could follow my Aunt Helen around, asking her questions, trying to do what she did and doing all I could to keep her to myself. One time a man came to take her out on a date. I barraged him with questions about where they were going and what they were going to do. He kept replying, "I don't know." Finally I remarked, "you don't know much, do you?" I don't remember being scolded for that, but my grandmother must have groaned and shook her head at my insolent behavior.

Each wonderful day would begin before dawn with the sun just barely bringing color to the eastern horizon. I'd follow Helen to the barn and watch as she milked the cows and squirted milk into the waiting cat's mouth. Then it was back to the house for a breakfast of oatmeal, boiled eggs and toast. Perhaps morning is my favorite time of day because of those experiences.

The day would end with Helen sitting in her room writing in her diary the events of the day. She would include notes about the weather, visitors, eggs gathered-at least those were the ones she would read to me. Sometimes she'd let me brush her waist-long hair and would teach me how to braid it. After her bedtime routine was finished, it was time for bed, except I would keep her awake for quite awhile talking. (Imagine that!)

I realize now how many things that I later did became attempts to imitate her. She wrote little articles called "Gopher Goings" for the small town newspaper. I wanted to write too and in 4th grade had a part in writing a class newspaper. Then in high school I took journalism and became one of the editors of the school newspaper. She would draw pictures of animals: horses and dogs especially. I tried and tried to draw pictures of horses too, but never as well as she did. Often she would make homemade cards with her drawings and send them to me. She and my grandparents always had a big garden with delicious fresh vegetables. I would go back to our home, scratch a little hole in the hard, dry dirt and plant a seed. Strangely, my little garden would never flourish like theirs! Even as an adult, I would write her, asking for the variety of lettuce that she grew that always tasted so wonderful. I still attempt to have a garden whenever I can, with a little more knowledge about how to make one grow!