Aunt Beatrice

My Aunt Beatrice died this weekend. She was in end-stage liver failure. She was very sick. We lost her Sunday afternoon. The doctors brought her back. But, in the end, her heart was too weak to sustain her life.

She was a good woman who gave more of herself than almost anyone I've ever known. She was married to my uncle, an alcoholic, for over 30 years. She raised her children and then raised her grandchildren following her son's enlistment in the Army. (The children's mother had abandoned the family some years before.) Despite her struggles, losses, and how busy her life was, she always remembered me. She called me by the nickname she'd given me (or maybe I'd given myself) as a baby even when I was an adult with two babies of my own. And she regularly sent her grandson's hand-me-downs for Michael - usually pressed - just to help out and to let me know that she was thinking of me, that I was loved. She found a way to care for everyone who came into her life.

She was my cousin and best friend, Robert's, godmother. I think the person he was and the way he lived his life speaks volumes about the type of person she was. He learned and lived by her example. I feel certain they are both saints and with Our Father in Heaven now.

She will be painfully missed by the grandchildren she raised and her granddaughter born (to her daughter, Lisa) just a week ago. With the rest of the family, I grieve most for them.