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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Aunt Linda

We try hard not to have favorites. It's rude to favor one person over another. Or at least to show it. As I get older, I don't care so much about being rude or polite. Don't get me wrong, I am a polite person, for the most part. But today, I want to talk about my favorite Aunt.

I met her when I was about 12 and she was in her early twenties. She was the coolest woman I had ever met! She was a tall pretty Texan with the longest hair I had ever seen. She had just married my Uncle, and best of all she was a "horse person". Linda had a horse named Diamond.

Through my summers spent in Texas, Aunt Linda gave me the best gift ever. Diamond. She was mine for the summer, as long as I took care of her. Duh!!! I would walk on water for that horse! She was a beauty & the sweetest horse ever. That was probably what sealed the deal that I knew Linda was the coolest ever.

But she was so much more to me than the horse Aunt. She was also the person that explained things to me when I was a teen with so many questions. She talked to me. She had faith in me and made me feel so extraordinary. She was my biggest fan as I was hers. I loved that she always made time for me.

She was pregnant when I was 13. I was fascinated with her growing tummy. She'd let me feel him kick & I was just so amazed! Baby Tully was the tiniest thing I ever held. She made me want to be a mother.

I also had a blast with her. She was one of my first "adult friends" and I loved how she treated me like an adult. When I was 17, my Grandma Kitty, Linda & I went out for Cocktails. (The drinking age was 18 in Texas back in the seventies, I don't remember how they convinced the Bouncer I was 18, but anyway..). I got introduced to flaming drinks, crazy drinks & shots. We sang with the band! It was hilarious.

As an adult, I lost touch a bit. We kept up with the Christmas cards, but that was about it. She was always there in my heart. I would pick up the phone, and never miss a beat with her. I sat with her at my Grandparents funerals, and hated that we never see each other. Within the past couple of years, with the help of email, we are close again. I love getting emails from her & she sends the best forwards. She is my confidant, I can tell her anything and she has a gift of helping me see through it.

She is no longer a horse person. She has moved on to goats. Now she is my goat person. And now I too love goats! She is still that beautiful tall Texan with the long hair.

I love my Aunt Linda!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK Jannie, you sure know how to make an Aunt feel LOVED. Your words brought back alot of memories to me, memories that I want to keep close to me all my life, because those times in my life you were talking about weren't always good times for me. The best memories were of you and Grandma and I just the way you described them.

If your blog gives you comfort and gives you release, it has done double duty for the two of us...I am just honored and feel wonderful because even when I didn't know it I really meant something to someone and made a difference in someone else's life. If you go through life and manage to touch people that way you are lucky, and I am really lucky that you feel the way you do -- enough to write about it in your blog.

I love to get your emails that involve stories of your kids. I smile and cringe with most everything you say. Life ain't easy for a Mom, not yours, not mine, not your Mom's Mom, none of us. But we do learn from them and your girls are going to be wonderful if they turn out like "THEIR MOM".

If I keep this up, I'll need to start a blog of my own...Just suffice it to say, Thank You, I LOVE YOU, and keep up the great blog.

A human kind of human said...

You mentioned "dysfunctional" in a previous blog about your family. Maybe you should forget about that ugly word as it sounds to me as if you had wonderful people in your growing years to sculpt you - Your mother (even though you might doubt it sometimes), your grandmother and of course, Aunt Linda. I think all of them taught you to "breathe" in their own way. Did I mention that I love the way you write about your past?