Visiting Aunt Do

This is Aunt Do. Short for Dolores and she's really my first cousin. But since shes almost 20 years older, I always called her Aunt.

I spent the day with her today. In this photo taken in 2015, she was 83. She will be 89 in October.

In December, she fell and broke her hip and dislocated her shoulder. She's been in a convalescent center since then.

Up until a few years ago, she still drove, had her hair done regularly and loved to frequent the casino's. I'd bet money that they knew her by her first name at the casino in Lawrenceburg Indiana. What a hoot that at 80 plus years she was still playing the slots!

No matter how good our genes are, we all age. And as we age, we fall and hurt ourselves and at the age of 88, healing doesn't happen fast.

Aunt Do was always someone I looked up to. She was gorgeous as a younger woman. I mean seriously gorgeous. Perfect in every way..never a hair out of place, and always dressed well. When Capri pants came into style which I guess was the late 50s, early 60s, I remember she wore them often and she rocked those things. She was slim and trim and had the perfect figure for them. She was particularly careful about her nails. I, who bit her nails to the quick as a young girl, always sat on my hands whenever I was around her. When I got engaged to be married, Aunt Do gave me a wedding shower and I remember her checking my nails which I had finally stopped biting so that they would look pretty for my wedding day.

Funny that I didn't know she noticed my bitten nails all those years. She never uttered a word.

It's hard to see your idols age and decline. It brings us up short to the reality that it happens and it happens to all of us, no exceptions. And it's yet another reminder of how fleeting time really is.

I have loved her for so many reasons all of my life and I will love her til the day I die. She is a link to my Dad and my aunts and uncles and grandparents when there are no other links left.

And today we reminisced about the old days when all of our family were still alive and the future seemed far away.

It's good that I still have my Aunt Do