In Loving Memory

It is with a very sad heart that I deviate from the post that I was going to give you today.

As much as I wanted this post to never come, it has. My Aunt passed away yesterday at 5:00 PM CST. She died exactly two weeks before her 53rd birthday. She died at home with her husband, son, daughter-in-law, one sister, and her mother present, just as she wanted.

I sit at the keyboard saddened for their loss. I also grieve for my mother, as my Aunt was the only other daughter-in-law in the family, and she and my mother were the best of friends and allies within the family unit. I grieve for my father as this is his only brother's wife and since my father is the oldest, he is supposed to be strong and brave. I grieve for my three Aunts as well.

What can I tell you about my Aunt Margaret? She and my Uncle met at Memphis State. They were married at St. John's Catholic Church in Memphis and I was in the wedding party. True 1970 style hippies, they wore non-traditional clothing and we were dressed in Holly Hobbie style dresses all made out of dotted swiss material. Mine was baby blue and my baby sister's was purple. They moved to Penn State so that my Uncle could finish some degree and then he became the head of the Theatre department. They moved to Iowa and he took over the same function at that college.

My Aunt was short and had fair skin with freckles. She had pretty brown hair with reddish tints. She was soft spoken. She was always learning a new craft. She learned all of the typical 1970's crafts and made a lot of stuff that I remember using. Along the way she learned to spin and loom and made wonderful things. She made rag place mats and table runners that I still use. She also knitted. She is not the Aunt that is responsible for teaching me to crochet, but she is the Aunt that is responsible for me picking up the needles again after I became frustrated. She would spend countless phone conversations with me talking me through a challenge or helping to teach me a technique that I could just not seem to master. She taught me my love for Cables and for Socks. She was an avid gardener and grew most of what they ate. She canned food as well and made wonderful preserves and jellies. She was a head nurse at a neonatal unit in her hospital. She was wonderful with the parents and the babies.

She did not want a service and did not want a burial. She will be cremated later today according to her wishes. There is not an obituary that I can post, at least not yet. I will remember her as I last saw her and later this weekend I will try to find a picture of her that I can share.

Her suffering from a terrible cancer that had taken over her body is now over and she is in peace. I am not sad for her passing, no, I am sad for all those lives that she will no longer touch and guide, and for my own loss of a family member that shared my love for creating things from sticks and string.

God Speed Aunt Margaret. Watch over us from that Knitting Guild in the sky and inspire us to achieve more. Also, find Rob and make sure that he is watching over his family. I will plant Joe Pye for you in the Spring.