Kee Hinckley on Nostr: For those following along at home, my aunt died peacefully last night. She hadn't had ...
For those following along at home, my aunt died peacefully last night. She hadn't had anything to eat or drink since Sunday, so it wasn't unexpected. And I'm happy for her, because for at least a year she'd been saying she was ready to go, but God kept telling her it wasn't time yet. She was a proud UCC church member, and as liberal as they come.
Unless you count when I was a baby, I only met my aunt in person twice when I was growing up. She was just a satellite-delayed voice on the telephone on Christmas Day for most of my life. Shortly after she had gotten her library sciences degree, she was trudging through the Boston winter and overheard two men talking about moving someplace warmer. She hated the cold. Her DNR instructions stated that I should not be used on her lips, and she should be kept warm. So she looked around to see where she could go that was warmer, and found the government would pay to send her to teach in Guam, and give her a full-fair trip back home every few years. This had the advantage of also being far from her mother. So off she went. And she seldom came back until she retired to Hawaii.
Once she cashed in that ticket home for around the world economy trip. She visited Post war Japan, and traveled on a train full of salary men who took off their business suits so they wouldn't get dirty from the soot. She was the only woman on the train. And she met her husband at some layover in the Pacific where they were both waiting for the next plane. She did not shy from adventure.
She was a bit neurotic, but she knew it and laughed at herself. The first time I met her as an adult, my first child had just been born, and we took her out to Legal Seafood for lunch. She expressed concern that we had put the baby in the car seat under a ceiling lamp, and if there were an earthquake, the light might fall on my daughter. And then she laughed at herself, because she knew that was silly, but she couldn't stop her brain from going there.
Once my wife and I visited her in Hawaii to take her out to lunch. When we got to her apartment she announced that she was tired and needed to take a nap first. So we sat there in the living room while she attempted to nap for half an hour. She finally gave up, and off to lunch we went.
Ordering food with her was always an adventure. She would ask about everything on the menu, and then order a tunafish sandwich. But only after checking to see what brand of tunafish and what brand of mayonnaise they used.
But I'm a big admirer of eccentric aunts. For one thing, they tell you stuff that nobody else in your family will tell you.
It was my aunt that told me that my grandfather had probably had an affair with a princess. Which does explain the two color drawings I have from that princess, with rather personal notes to my grandfather written on them.
And she told me how my grandfather's English dissertation, "Browning and the Bible" actually had charts and graphs in it, as befits someone who had originally majored in chemistry. And about the time he was late for a board meeting because he stopped learn how a stonemason chiseled letters in a gravestone.
She was also the one that told me that one time when my grandparents were babysitting me, they snuck me off to a minister and had me baptized. They were upset that there was no way my mother was going to have me given a Christian baptism.
Unless you count when I was a baby, I only met my aunt in person twice when I was growing up. She was just a satellite-delayed voice on the telephone on Christmas Day for most of my life. Shortly after she had gotten her library sciences degree, she was trudging through the Boston winter and overheard two men talking about moving someplace warmer. She hated the cold. Her DNR instructions stated that I should not be used on her lips, and she should be kept warm. So she looked around to see where she could go that was warmer, and found the government would pay to send her to teach in Guam, and give her a full-fair trip back home every few years. This had the advantage of also being far from her mother. So off she went. And she seldom came back until she retired to Hawaii.
Once she cashed in that ticket home for around the world economy trip. She visited Post war Japan, and traveled on a train full of salary men who took off their business suits so they wouldn't get dirty from the soot. She was the only woman on the train. And she met her husband at some layover in the Pacific where they were both waiting for the next plane. She did not shy from adventure.
She was a bit neurotic, but she knew it and laughed at herself. The first time I met her as an adult, my first child had just been born, and we took her out to Legal Seafood for lunch. She expressed concern that we had put the baby in the car seat under a ceiling lamp, and if there were an earthquake, the light might fall on my daughter. And then she laughed at herself, because she knew that was silly, but she couldn't stop her brain from going there.
Once my wife and I visited her in Hawaii to take her out to lunch. When we got to her apartment she announced that she was tired and needed to take a nap first. So we sat there in the living room while she attempted to nap for half an hour. She finally gave up, and off to lunch we went.
Ordering food with her was always an adventure. She would ask about everything on the menu, and then order a tunafish sandwich. But only after checking to see what brand of tunafish and what brand of mayonnaise they used.
But I'm a big admirer of eccentric aunts. For one thing, they tell you stuff that nobody else in your family will tell you.
It was my aunt that told me that my grandfather had probably had an affair with a princess. Which does explain the two color drawings I have from that princess, with rather personal notes to my grandfather written on them.
And she told me how my grandfather's English dissertation, "Browning and the Bible" actually had charts and graphs in it, as befits someone who had originally majored in chemistry. And about the time he was late for a board meeting because he stopped learn how a stonemason chiseled letters in a gravestone.
She was also the one that told me that one time when my grandparents were babysitting me, they snuck me off to a minister and had me baptized. They were upset that there was no way my mother was going to have me given a Christian baptism.