My Tribute to my Aunt Geraldine on her 86th Birthday

July 14, 2023

Hello again, internets!

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I last dusted off this (*hack, cough!) keyboard, but, as they say, time does not lie! This year has been quite a doozy so far, and it’s only about halfway over! I swear Im going to have to make myself get back online more – but time has a way of flying past and being so far over the horizon that I don’t know which direction to look in when the backdraft slaps me across the face! Oh, well, since I’m here again…

I hope that all of my internet friends find themselves well, or at least, as well as can be. I’m sitting here tonight getting ready to celebrate my Aunt Geraldine’s Birthday with her tomorrow with a sandwich luncheon at the church fellowship hall at 11:00 in the morning, and I just had to take a few minutes to sit down and capture for all eternity why she is the most loving and compassionate person I have ever known. If you are a local friend and have missed my posted invitation on FB, then please, by all means, come join us! Everyone will be welcome – whether you can stay for a bite or if you just run by to let her know you’re thinking about her. Everyone she gets to see will make her more imaginably happy than you can imagine. That’s one of the reasons I felt I needed to write this.

Even if you may’ve never met her personally, I guarantee that each and every one of you has at one time at least heard me mention her. She is my mother’s oldest living sister, and the aunt I currently live with here in our family (my grandparents’, her parents’) home in Louisville MS. For her entire life, she has been a caregiver. When she wasn’t working in housekeeping at the Winston County Nursing Home, she was taking care of, first, her parents, two brothers, and a sister, as well as one of her mother’s brothers, and enjoying a whole plevy of nieces and nephews (of which I am but one) here in what has always been her home. She has other brothers and sisters, some still with us, and some who aren’t, who left home and forged families of their own, but to these special few she dedicated her entire life. She personally looked after each one of them for as long as they each graced this earth. And slowly, but inevitably, as all things are, each of those whose she cared for has left this place for their eternal home in Heaven, until she is the last one that remained here. And that is where I stepped in.

For as long as I’ve know her, she has been more like a sister to me than an Aunt. I grew up in this house with her and the others, and have been here pretty much every single day of my life. Even when I was living out on my own, up until a few years ago. As a matter of fact, I literally cannot think of one time in my life when I didn’t know where Geraldine was or what she was doing. And that’s saying something, seeing that I am going to turning the Grand 5-0 in November myself. But several years ago, when her last stay-at-home sister, Pauline, passed away, the time came when she was left alone. And for as long as I can remember, I have always promised her that as long as I draw breath, she will never have to go anywhere that she doesn’t want to, and so till this day, she still enjoys life in what has always been her home. I have never been lucky enough to have a separate family of my own. Other than a severely brief marriage in the mid nineties, I have always been happy enough to live on my own, and be around her and the rest of my maternal “siblings”. As she has gotten older, I have found it not only a responsibility, but a true privilege to be able to be here for her now that she, herself, sometimes needs someone to call on.

I could not have hoped to have had a better person to dedicate my time to these last few years. Lord knows, she did the same for me when I was younger. She is the kind of person who never has lunch, or supper, until she has tracked me down, where I am inevitably lost somewhere on the internet seeking some yet unascertained jewel of useless geekery knowledge, forever stuck in the middle of the last Pokemon Game I have not yet taken time to stop and save yet, or swept up into the universe of a book good enough to rip me away from the mortal plane for a few pale seconds, and made sure that 1) I know it is time to eat (I am forever guilty of being THAT PERSON – the one who can never even think of food unless I am really hungry, and thanks to the wonder of modern diabetic medicine, I generally now never am) and that 2) I have a plan of what I’m going to (immediately) get up and consume. 🙂 That’s just her. She has never in her life thought of herself first. She always makes sure that everybody else has what they not only need, but mostly just want, before she even thinks about doing something for herself. She has always amazed me with her kindness, generosity, and purely un-self-concernedness – she was raised to do for others so much so that that she doesn’t realize some of the things she needs for herself. So I have tried to make it my priority to ensure that she gets what SHE WANTS nowadays, and, though I am far from being the one who can immediately glean her thoughts, I do know her well enough that I can already (most of the time) have ready what she needs when she needs it. I don’t always get it always right the first time, but by George I do get there in the end, usually.

So, that is what I want to say about my lovely Aunt Geraldine. She will be humble, and truly will not know what all the fuss is about tomorrow for her, but I hope she will have one of the best birthdays that she had had yet to date. I truly hope that she has a day that she will remember joyfully until this time comes around next year.

That being said, my dear internet friends, this day is not without tragedy as well. Something horrible has happened to some people I am very close to during the course of yesterdays’ storm, but rest assured, God is already working within me as to what I need to be doing next, even after we take a truly momentarily brief respite in honor of my Aunt. I already have another post brewing on that subject that I plan to blog about (gasp!) later on today here in this same space. Yes, it is going to seem like lightning is striking twice in this same space (pardon the unforgivable pun) with the rapidity of which I hit you guys with not one but two new posts in the same day. I have, however finally hit my wall, and 3:00 has come, so it is time for me to pursue the couple of hours of sleep I will need to prepare for tomorrow and it’s inevitable aftermath, but please keep tuned in here for more on that subject shortly after lunch tomorrow. Alas, I still have a bit of planning to do do for that special occasion later on today when it is time to get back to everything with fury and determination. Until then, have a wonderful rest of your night/morning, whichever finds you perusing this latest post. Until then, I’m stealing a little something form the late, great, one and only, Stan (the man) Lee -“Excelsior!”