• With a gleaming smile, her sunny blonde hair and sky blue eyes became brighter. Her contagious energy put everyone around her in high spirits. Her sugar sprinkled cookies and sweet raspberry sauce are two of the many sweet deserts that would remove all sadness, danger, and dismay from your life.
    With soothing eyes, she talked to the real you. The passion that she had for family was strong and nothing, nothing prepared me for her death. Her closet was a mountain of shimmers, flickers, and moon-like glows. My aunt, you see, had a soft spot for shoes. Some of her shoes, some red and glossy as tomatoes, some soft and silky as a bedspread, were never worn, while others she wore until she could not wear them anymore.
    She and my mom would chatter for hours about shoes, clothes, my grandmother, and about my beach house in construction, which my mom needed my aunts guidance for, because my aunt was older and wiser. My aunt argued with my mom until my mom let her help cook the Christmas dinner. Her hands seemed to take on a life of their own as they ran around the table. She made the best roast beef; never dry, never too salty. She was a good sport too, my dad bought her a slimming, red, sparkling dress, and she wore it. My aunt had Breast Cancer, and I never knew. My mom told me on our way to the funeral home, and I realized that she never told my grandmother either. Then it hit me, she loved my family enough not to make us panic about her condition. I could not believe it, and I still don’t. My world flipped upside down, and I feel that nothing can flip it right side up.
    In Loving memory: My Aunt, March 2, 1951 – May 15, 2007 heart