Betty

While we were in France, my Aunt Betty passed away. She had been ill, and confined to bed for a long while.

Betty was my mother's last surviving sibling. When I was young she lived in Mobile, Alabama, but after heart surgery she moved to Franklin, Tennessee to be with my Aunt Frances and Mary Clare. Betty outlived both of them.

Aunt Betty was a strong personality. I remember her visiting Paris with me (and others, of course) and whispering to me that we should find a way to cut the long line to get into the Louvre.

Betty was stubborn. During one visit Frances drove us to an outdoor picnic her friends were having, and Betty didn't want to be there. "I'll wait in the car," she said. And she sat in the car, in 90 degree heat, rather than get out and say hello to a few people.

But she loved me, and she loved my boys. When we visited, she would sit with them and hold them and watch TV with them. She let them help her make a lemon pie, which, by the way, was made with lemons from her lemon tree, and which always came out too runny.

Betty talked a lot about her days as a nurse. She showed me the quilts she made and the ones she hadn't yet finished. She loved working in her garden, which always seemed to be a tangle of green things but she seemed to know what she wanted done, and woe to anyone who tried to "help" by so much as mowing her lawn. But what did it matter? It was her garden, and she loved spending her time there.

Her bedroom was jam packed with furniture, dressers and and armchair and nightstands. It had too many plants. She used to climb into her bed - one that seemed too short for a regular person - and watch "The Shawshank Redemption" again and again. She also really liked "Baby's Day Out." I am not sure why.

It's really hard for me to realize that she is gone. The force of her personality was so strong, it's hard for me to believe it doesn't exist anymore. It's like I am living in a double world. In one, I can see her bedroom - quilts on the bed, clothes on the chair, plants in the window. In the other, I know the room doesn't exist anymore. I know I sat in a folding chair for hours talking to people during the repainting, remodling, restructuring of the house, while Betty was in a facility last August.

I was going to look up a picture of Betty as a young woman and scan it in, so I could post it here, but I just didn't have the time at present. Maybe some day later this week I will get around it it. These picture will have to do in the meantime.