Tuesday, August 2, 2005

My Dear Aunt Ev
I’m going to miss her a lot. She’s been the grandma close to home that I’ve never had. She’s never even had any real grandkids until now although they’re adopted. But that’s cool that they’re my cousins now.

Aunt Ev (great aunt) is moving back to New Jersey where she started out and raised her kids before moving to other parts of the country. It still amazes me that she’s been retired for all the years that I’ve been alive; that sort of makes me feel like a baby.

I helped her do a lot of packing that she would other wise have had to do by herself. And as I was doing so I felt sad because I thought to myself that I wasn’t ever going to see her house the way I’d always known it since I was little, again. And even just the house itself because of many memories. My family spent many holidays in that house. During Christmas she always decorated her home so beautifully even though she was the only one who stayed there. I used to always love opening presents under the wonderful Christmas trees that she would pick out and have look simply extravagant.

When I was little her house was like this magical and enchanted place because of all the interesting items and antiques that filled its rooms. My favorites were what I call the Japan-lady pillow, her miniature shrine, the little Japanese doll which I thought was a little creepy, but liked it anyway. Those are all from her trip to Japan many, many, years ago. I would open up three of her curio cabinets from time to time and look at some things when she wasn’t looking. What I loved about that house is how it was structured so that the kitchen, formal dining room, living room, front sitting room, and two of the bedrooms on the first floor were all conveniently connected. This made for nice and rowdy games of hide-and-seek and tag. But since there was so much that could fall over and wind up broken, my brothers and I usually didn’t get to play for long.

Also these two chairs over 100 years old that I tried avoiding for fear they’d break if I sat in them for too long; belonged to her husband’s great grandfather. Not that I weigh a ton; it’s just they’re really old although she said they’re in good condition. I took a look at her coin collection with most being from Europe, but still interesting enough. One coin looked like it might have been used for gambling, but she said it was real money. And she showed me this street sign from a street here that was named after my cousin. She said that people kept taking it and it would show up again so the sign was just given to her to keep since people wouldn’t leave it alone. Imagine that. ^_^ I think I’d be a bit ticked if people kept stealing the street sign from the street that was named after me.

Another something amazing is, well, she’s rather old and yet she is so healthy; not just physically, but mentally too although her memory isn’t what it used to be. But then she is quite the health nut with all of her wonderful organic foods and natural herbs and seasonings. It’s really kooky how she buys a lot of food with the intention of giving some to my family, but winds up waiting til it’s pretty much gone bad or she gives it to us all frozen. She’ll stick anything into the freezer: fish, fresh ginger root, fruit, bread, fresh vegetables, milk, and leftovers. And the funny thing is she’ll leave the stuff in there for weeks, months even before getting it out and eating it or sending it our way.

I’ll miss her two Yorkies also that she’s had ever since the time I first knew what a dog was. Spike and Clarice, 12 and 13 and yet so young; they’re too cute and are just like two little puppies.

I wish to visit her in New Jersey as soon as the first opportunity arises. : )

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