My Tia

My Aunt.  I am one of the few lucky people who can say I had the chance to have a special bond with my Aunt.  Her name...Ruthie.  Those that were close with her know her as fufi.  Ok well those of us that knew her as a baby couldnt say Ruthie we said fufi.  Even when we knew how to say her  name she was still fufi.  She was my second mother.  She was a grandma to my children.

I dont like talking on the phone.  I am a text type of person.  I can express myself in the written form so much better.  There are really only two people im good with having a conversation about nothing with. That is my sister Stacey and Ruthie.   See she lived 24 hours away from me.  I lived in Texas she lived in California.  So we had to call to talk to each other.  When we didnt have much money and there wasnt any specials on the whole long distant calling we had to limit our calls to once a week every Sunday.  But that all changed and I talked to her everyday hour or two would go by and we were still talking away.  Who knows really what are conversations were about we could easily talk to each other.  If I didnt know something she would.

She told me that my mom came to live with her when I was about 6 months old.  And that she would help my mom get me in the middle of the night.  Ever since then I would go see each every year every summer until she passed away.  There are soo many things that she taught me.  Part of my personality I got from her.  She had a room we all called the work room.  Its where we learned to make crafts and sew. She was the one who really got us to go to church.  During the summers we would make all sorts of crafts.  Anything you needed to make a craft with she had in her work room.

Honestly one post couldnt not be enough to tell the person she was to me.  I was going through such a hard emotion time in 2010.  Well towards the end.  Which was towards the end of her days.  We didnt know it.  I went to see her during an unusual time frame from Aug- Oct.  Towards the end of my stay there she started to lose her vision in one of her eyes.  I remember her worrying that if she lost her vision in one of her eyes she wouldnt be able to drive.  That thought was so depressing for her.  She went to the eye dr and they didnt know what was going on.  She started to go see the eye dr every week because it was so unusual she got second opinions and more opinions and they couldnt figure out what it was.  It got so bad that she ended up in the hospital.  But we still talked everyday.  I knew she was gonna be ok and they'd get her better.  I remember even talking to her in the hospital.  They thought it was the west nile at first. But in the end it was cancer that took her from us.  She had gotten her check ups to see if it had come back and the tests came back negative, they did spinal taps and still couldnt figure it out.  Some how they figured it out to late.  The cancer had gone to her brain.  I keep thinking how could I have not figured that out.  I mean her eye brain...well I wasnt the only one the Dr didnt know either and at the point of finding out she was so weak she couldnt take the treatment.  My mom had gone to be with her for a short time before she passed. She told my mom (her being so weak she was in and out of consciousness and sometimes talking in a daze or a dream state) but she had told my mom to tell the girls to pray for each other because each of us were dealing with something we had not told each other.

She was right.  I was dealing with something.  Something it took me awhile to tell my family.  My then Husband had asked me for a divorce.  I couldnt tell anyone.  I am the type of person that doesnt like to show my pain or much emotion.  I hate burdening people.  And it was the worst time to tell anyone.  Everyone was dealing with such a hardship of Ruthie in the hospital to her passing away that alone was devastating.  I do have to clearify this post isnt about Justin.  But I was in no way at fault.  He had been in training for the National Guards.  Lets just say he came home from christmas with another womens name tattoo to his arm.  I also just want to state that I still tried to keep our marriage together.  In the end it was out of my hands.  Back on track here..I find it amazing that through so much pain she still knew that we needed her and told my mom to tell us to pray for each other.  My mom told us all this after she had passed.  Just hearing that brought so much love to me after she was gone.

Those of us that she has touched have forever been changed.  Our life isnt whole anymore.  When I close my eyes the memories I have come flooding flooding back to me.  I see us as my children's age sleeping on her sleeper sofa and she is reading to us stories.  I see us asking her to build us a fort and she make this amazing fort in her living room for us.  I see us sneaking in her room and her opening her arm up for us to crawl in bed beside her, and my aunt Steffie come to bring us all breakfast in bed. I see us going outside to water her flowers and her garden we all loved.  I see her playing her bagpipes or the drum marching down the street.  I see her taking us to the county fair every summer.  I see us dancing in her house.  This is me hugging Ruthie and my sister singing into the broom (what u cant see is her pup is chasing the broom, he had his own broom too)