Loss...

My great aunt, Mary Carnegie Thompson passed away yesterday after a lengthy illness. She had been staying in a local nursing home since January. She was a "constant" at the farm where I grew up. She grew up on the same farm and lived in the same house her entire life. When I was young her and my grandfather shared an office in her home, where they ran an insurance agency. The agency still named after my grandfather, is now being run by my cousin in his home. I enjoyed going to visit Aunt Mary when I was young because her house was always nice, cool, and full of cool "old" things. She also had an old upright piano that was out of tune, but we still loved to sit in front of and poke at the keys. She had a ton of old photos on the shelves and walls and as you walked by the eyes followed... I found an interest in postage stamps from hanging out at the office at my aunt's place, and looking at all of the mail that went in and out of the office. I used to save the old envelopes from the trash can, and I learned how to remove the stamps without damaging them. And as my interest in stamps moved beyond the occassional new stamp that came in the office mail, Aunt Mary invited me upstairs to her attic to look through some old letters and postcards she had kept. She let me have the stamps from her "memories".

Aunt Mary was my typist before I learned to type. When I was just starting high school, she would help me create a newsletter for my church youth group. I remember she got quite a kick out of typing something other than work correspondence, especially when my newsletter contained the words "zip", "zap", "zoom", "zowie", and other words she didn't get to type often! :-) Her electric typewriter had the ability to type in either red or black ink at the shift of a key. She used to make little rows "army" men by combining letters, and symbols on top of one another, and shifted slightly... Before there were ASCII drawings, she was doing art with her typewriter. I never did learn how she did that . When we worked on the farm during the hot summer days bailing the hay, she would always show up with her large red and white jug full of delicious ice cold water. Drinking from the little metal spout from the thermos was the highlight of the day when we were hot and tired. Her yard had a large pear tree, and a decent sized grape vine of which I snuck fruit off of every year. The grapes were sour, and the pears a little hard, but we always thought it was delicious because we were sneaking the forbidden fruit! ;-) We used to throw the really hard pears at an old "spring house", trying to get the pears through the window. When I graduated from high school I moved away from home, and I didn't come back very often, and when I did, I didn't stop and visit my aunt. We saw each other only once or twice a year when our family would get together for a holiday such as Memorial day and we would go to the farm, and have a cookout, or a hayride. My last visit with her was at the nursing home. Before I left, I told her I loved her, and I kissed her on her cheek. Even though she was very ill and drifting in and out of sleep, when I kissed, her eyes cleared, and she looked right at me with recognition and smiled... Peace Aunt Mary... Peace and Rest... You will be missed.