My Aunt Shirley

Last week I spent a couple of days in Washinton, DC with cousins.  We were there for the funeral of my Aunt Shirley who was buried with her husband Bruno at Arlington National Cemetary. Her epitaph will appear on the back of his headstone.  She always did have his back....and was there behind a lot of people, encouraging, loving, challenging us to be our best.  Shirley was also a great role model. She started college when her youngest child started kindergarten and then went on to teach at a "tough" high school in the Calumet Region of Greater Chicagoland. Chatting with the Army Chaplain before the service, I told him about Shirley's family and career as a high school English teacher. My cousins mentioned the ten years that college degree took with awe, especially when they remember all the rest of the things that made up their full family life at the time. She was a mentor to her students and family...and a friend to us all.  Her kids fondly recall Shirley's humor, called her a great cook, an expert at counted cross-stitch, and even her obituary mentioned her enthusiastic card-playing. More than one midwestern family has bonded over the card table! Pinoncle and games with crazy names like euchre and over-the river and even stranger "house" rules that take hours to play; these are some of my fondest memories of family in Indiana.  That and family get-togethers involving sitting for hours around the kitchen table, playing cards, eating, reminiscing and drinking bottomless pots of coffee, and then eating again. And laughing....there was always lots of laughter.

When I asked her for a suggestion for a good book report for my World Literature class, she gave me her tattered paperback copy of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. When my eyes got big, she just smiled and said "Don't let the length of it spook you!  It's a love story.  You'll like Anna.  She's a strong woman, just like you. I wouldn't give it to you if I didn't think you could handle it."  She was right--of course.  I did get through it and I loved it.  Maybe it is time to re-read it...and maybe Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, while I'm at it (another of Aunt Shirley's recommendations).

Rest in Peace, Aunt Shirley, rest in peace.  Thank you for everything. We will miss you.