Another Goodbye

The older I get, the more goodbyes there seem to be. 

My elders, folks that still make me a child (okay, in my mind only), are slipping away.

The other day, someone who had been very close to me all through my childhood passed away. I knew she'd been quite ill for some months, diagnosed, I believe, with kidney cancer. She declined treatment from the very beginning, being as she was 94 when diagnosed and felt it foolish to make herself sick and suffer from a treatment that in no way would enhance her life and certainly not prolong it. 

Eventually, of course, she began the decline and died last week at the age of 96. 

She was a huge part of my childhood. She camped with us a lot, hunting and fishing with the best of them. She was a real outdoors person, and after she retired stayed in blue jeans and shirts unless it was Sunday.

She was the school truant officer back in the day. Today, to be more politically correct, I guess, they are called social workers. Think about it: you are laying outta school; you get caught. Who are you most concerned about visiting you, a truant officer or a social worker?  Pffffft.

Anyway, when I was very small she would buy me things if she saw I liked them. I still have a small plastic elf that sits on my mantel every Christmas and a five inch, cast iron, pot bellied stove she found for me after searching everywhere, because I'd fallen in love with the one she had at her house. 

She had funny stories about stuff I said, just like my parents did.

I called her "Meanie" and she called me "Meanie". The reason is now lost to time. 

When I quit school in the third grade (look it up, I blogged about it a long time ago), she was the truant officer and had to visit our home. 

I wasn't nervous, she visited our home a lot. It was a little strange because she was in her school clothes; a skirt, blouse, hose and loafers, instead of her weekend clothes, blue jeans. Plus, Mother and Daddy left the room for her to talk to me alone.

I have  no memory of what was said, or what she did. But I bet she felt just as helpless as all  the other adults I was driving crazy over this.

No one should be shocked when a 96 year old person dies.

Yet, I was, sorta. I mean, if someone has been around all your life and you are 61 years old, shouldn't they stay around the rest of the time? I know the logical answer.

I've felt rather sad for a few days.

I  haven't really seen her much in years - only if I ran into her somewhere - and not at all in the past two or three.

But I knew she was there.

And now, she's not.