My great-aunt Jackie passed away yesterday. She had a stroke several months back and has never done very well since then. I think she was unhappy in the nursing home and very likely in pain, as well as being trapped in her body (she could no longer walk and could barely speak). Overall, as they say, this was for the best.

This is the first death in my family of someone I was close to. My aunt Villa passed away a few years ago, I remember best going to the airport each year to pick her up (she lived in Florida but came to visit about once a year). I didn’t find out about her passing away until some time after it happened as I had not seen her in quite a while before it happened. I believe this is my first funeral, and I’m a pallbearer.

I’ll remember her best as the sweet elderly aunt who we visited for Thanksgiving each year. She had a small, old house in College Station full of tchotkes, and a lovely yard. Even with sceleosis and arthritis, when I was younger (she was in her sixties at the time), she would get out and work in her yard some. Jackie was 88.

Goodbye Aunt Jackie