Aunt Janie

When my mom was growing up, she didn't have the childhood we'd all wish for our kids. Very honestly, that understates the situation. Her mother, while a very accomplished teacher, was not the most loving, tender of people. Even with her grandkids, my 'swamp-granny' was a bit more difficult. I could get along with her, because I was a tomboy who loved to be outside, riding horses, fishing and hunting. But my mom wasn't as a child, nor will she ever be. And that was hard. On top of it, her parents were hard working, and my mom was the oldest of three, so she was responsible for a lot of the household matters, including taking care of her two younger sisters.

One person took my mom under her 'wing' and treated her like a little girl, and that was my Aunt Janie. She's my grandfather's brother. We have beautiful collections of crocheted items that Aunt Janie made. My mom has a hand-crocheted "Last Supper" that is framed, hanging in our foyer at home, which Aunt Janie made over the course of the last 6 months of my swamp-granny's life. She gave it to my mom for her 40th birthday, which was on the day after her mother had died.

I have a collection of crocheted ornaments, and also a nice set of cross-stitched Christmons, which I put out every year in a special place. These were made by Aunt Janie.

Aunt Janie moved 'in town' about 2 years ago, when she just couldn't take care of her house any more. She got an apartment in Braswell Homes, which is technically low-income housing, but it's become a place where the older population moves when they need to live in a duplex rather than a home. It's a nice community, full of many older widows. One thing they did there was feed the cats. Now, a few cats are good, but (literally) 75 or so around becomes a problem.

So Aunt Janie took it upon herself to begin trapping the cats. My Uncle Bobby is the super for the subsidized housing projects in my home town. His wife is my mom's sister, and so he took care of Aunt Janie. One day, he showed up to see how she was doing, and she took him inside, and showed him her three traps, each with a live cat inside. "Bobby, we got to get rid of these so I can catch more!" So Uncle Bobby took them away, presumably out of town to the country, and she proceeded to catch 28 cats, two possums, a raccoon, and a coyote (no lie!) in her traps over her two years.

About a month ago, Aunt Janie fell and needed her shoulder operated on somehow. They proceeded with the operation despite her age (84), and she had some issues recovering from the surgery. Turns out, her fall was caused by a mild heart attack. So they put a stint in to deal with some sort of problem there. And she got worse. Her kidneys failed for the first time, and they had to put her on dialysis. Last week, things started working again, but she still was having problems with water on her lungs. She never got off dialysis - but she did develop a blood infection from the catheterization.

Today, they called in the family.

Aunt Janie lies in a hospital bed, with a staph infection, failing organs, and her family around her. I don't know how much longer she has, but it's coming soon, and I'm just not ready to let her go. She was special to me, and not just because she was so special to my mother. She is a good, Christian woman, who genuinely worked to make this world a better place in her own way. She loved making things with her hands, and she continued that up until this past Christmas, when she gave everyone hand-made ornaments for Christmas. Beautiful things - something I could never begin to duplicate.

This year has already brought loss into my life, and I'm just not ready for it to happen again. At the same time, death is absolutely part of life, and that's something I must accept, because God does not let us choose the time or place. I guess that those of us left here among the living must continue to live our lives in a manner that honors those who precede us.

But it's still hard, and it's even harder when it's my mommy who's hurting the most over this.