Love Letter to a Lady

I had a dream the other night that I was in Aunt Florence's kitchen, making doughnuts with her. It brought back memories of trips to her house up north, where there was always special food of some kind, and of the time she let me cut the middles out of the dough before we dropped them in the hot fat and watched them sizzle and bob.

Aunt Florence isn't really an aunt, but my dad's first cousin. He spent a great deal of his childhood living with his cousins, and since he only had one sibling himself they turned into a huge, close clan of children, who remained close their whole lives. I do believe that Dad and Aunt Florence are the only ones left now. He's in his eighties, and she is in her nineties, and still as close as ever. I loved our visits there--somehow, miraculously, the only car rides during which I failed to be car sick.

Aunt Florence had a wonderful house which she designed herself, perfectly logically laid out and efficient, but the highlight for me was the plenitude of book shelves and cabinets. Aunt Florence had been a public school librarian, and loved books as much as I did, and the joy of finding something to read at her house was one of those things that made me full of happy anticipation.

But the real joy of Aunt Florence's house was--Aunt Florence. There's nobody like her in the whole world, and if I could pick one person to be just like if and when I grow up, it would be she. There was no question you could not ask, and expect to be given the dignity of a reply, and every word that came out of her mouth was a masterpiece of wisdom and good humor. Even on the rare occasions that I was naughty, she could quell me with a word, but I didn't mind because that word was always just the right one. And even these days, old age has not reduced her ability to see every person and situation clearly, and address them with a twinkle in her eyes. Never did I see her at a loss, or sharp tempered. I once mentioned to Dad that Aunt Florence was unusually full of wisdom, and he replied, "She's earned it".

Aunt Florence divorced her husband at a time when you just didn't do that, but for good reasons, and raised her children single-handedly in an age when that was extremely rare. That can't have been easy. It isn't easy now, but back when the stigmas of society were strongly against her it must have been even harder. But she managed, and somehow raised equally good-humored children who are stable, intelligent, and long-married adults with grandchildren of their own.

How on earth did she do it? Well, in addition to her own innate intelligence, Aunt Florence is a woman of faith. If we were at her house on a Sunday, we went to her church with her, and while that doesn't necessarily mean anything in her case it did. The combination of a life of hardship and a good Lord to bear her up produced a diamond of the first water--strong and brilliant and beautiful in my eyes. Although I don't especially want the life of hardship that produced it, I do dearly want that kind of faith. Everybody needs a good role model, and she is mine.

So here's to you, Aunt Florence, and thanks for everything you've taught me, even though you probably never realized I was watching and listening and storing it all up.

Love, Spud.