Mary Roark

You know how you think of people and just get an urge to contact them because the urge just simply will not go away?

I have had that urge for about a week now... to call my Aunt. My dear, sweet, 82 year old Aunt, my Momma's sister, that took me under her wing after my Mom went to heaven....

As usual, I was too busy, or it was too late, or too early, or something else just came up....

Last night, after I finished my schoolwork, I had one of those burning urges to google my Aunt's name for some odd reason..... and what did I find?

My precious Aunt's obituary... right there, in black and white, staring at me. My Aunt's beautiful face smiling at me from a picture taken long ago.

She had passed away in a nursing home a week previous, on August 14th.

Why didn't my cousins call me? Aunt Toot's had my number...... why didn't they tell me she may not make it? Did they think that I wouldn't care? Did they think I haven't cared? Did they think about any of us at all?

I didn't get a chance to say goodbye or to sit with her for awhile and remind her of all the laughter and wonderful times that we had while I was growing up. I wanted to remind her of the time when I snuck out of my house to go to hers (next door) and sat on her back porch until she found me. She didn't get angry, she simply called my Mom and Dad and told them I was staying the night with her and we had a slumber party (I was about 4). Or when I would play in the woods behind her house and pick flowers (no stem included) and take them to her, and she would float them in a bowl of water. 

Or how about when I found out I was pregnant at the age of 16, and my Mom thought I would be reprimanded by my Aunt, so she took me to her house and made me tell Aunt Toots that I was going to have a baby. Know what she said? "Well.... alrighty then! Guess we'll have a baby, huh?" and wouldn't let my Mom fuss at me any further... she said what was done was done, and we just had to make the best of it.

Then as I grew and had more children, she took them under her wing too, having slumber parties, and laughter and hot chocolate into the wee hours of the night.

Aunt Toots was full of bubbly, rambuncious laughter, and anyone around here was infected by her natural and ornery sense of humor... one of her favorite sayings as she got older (Specifically once when she was particularly loud and we were trying to get her to quiet down) was, "If they throw me out I'll claim I have dementia! I'm 80 years old! They won't know the difference!"

She could cuss like a drunken sailor, and all the while be as gentle as a feather in wiping away tears (as she did to me when both of my parents passed).... and to top it off, that woman could make a mean oatmeal cookie! She made them daily, because her reasoning was "The doctor told me to get more fiber, and oatmeal has fiber in it, right?" Now seriously, who could argue with that logic?  :)

Awww... heck Aunt Toot's~ I'm sure gonna miss you!

Mary Sephronia Roark 

(Can't get me for using that middle name now, can ya Aunt Toots? LOL!)

January 25, 1928- August 14, 2010

 I love you and although I couldn't be there to see you off.... I hold a piece of you near and dear to me always. Your memory lives on in all of us (along with your sick sense of humor)!

Tell Momma and Daddy I am ok, and that I miss and love them both dearly.....

We'll all be together again someday!