My Aunt Mary

Nearly everyone I know has an Aunt Mary.  Mary seems to be a very popular name for Aunts.  But, no one I know, has an Aunt Mary like my Aunt Mary!  

My Aunt Mary lives in Ohio, which she always told me was round on the ends and hi in the middle.  She, also, told me that she’d been born Wright, but she hadn’t been Wright in a long time.  I didn’t get either joke till I was around 20 or so, so I’m glad she kept telling them.  Most of the jokes she told were short like that, except for the one about the snake that needed a pot to hiss in.  That one took my Aunt Mary a little longer to tell.  

There were other really cool things I learned about my Aunt Mary growing up.  She could burp and say bow wow, at the same time.  I’ll bet your Aunt Mary can’t do that! She also married a man name Pink.  How cool is that?  

My brother, Doug, and I loved going to visit the Kohrings. (Uncle Pinks last name) They lived on their own road.  Really, they lived on Kohring road!  No one else I have ever known has lived on their own road, but my Aunt Mary did.  Also, Calvin and LouAnn were the cousins closest in age to us, so we had great fun.  I remember once, Calvin couldn’t stop laughing for an entire day!  We just kept on making him laugh...  Steve was there, too, but he was older and stayed away from us. I think he thought the four of us were crazy.

In later years I went to Michigan State, and spent several Thanksgivings at my Aunt Mary’s. It was always a blast.  I remember laughter from the time I pulled up the driveway, until I had to get back for classes.  

In even later years, I went through my cancer experience, and wrote a play about it called With Flying Colors.  I had been asked to perform it in a banquet hall over looking the Silver Dome in Pontiac, MI.  At that time, I hadn’t done the play that much, so I was pretty nervous about the performance.  Well, the first time I looked up into the audience, there was my Aunt Mary sitting with a big smile on her face, right in the front row.  She had brought some of the gang up from Ohio to Michigan to see my show. 

She must have liked it, because she pulled the same stunt just two years ago when I got a chance to perform the show in La Peer, MI.  There she was, my Aunt Mary, 86 years old at the time, sitting right there in the front row, again, with that big ole grin on her face... 

Just a couple weeks back, I read on LouAnn’s Facebook page that my Aunt Mary was in the hospital and not feeling well. I got status reports over the next days from LouAnn, Mom, and Dad.  They weren’t good.  And when my Mom called me early last Saturday morning with the news, I knew there was a little less laughter in the world.  

My Aunt Mary is now in heaven, and I know if she has anything to say about it, she’s living on her own road up there, too.  When they have heavenly events, she’ll go, and sit in the front row, and she will laugh, and when the Angels are feeling down, she’ll do the bow wow thing and crack them all up!  

I know you belong to God, now, but in my heart you will always be, my Aunt Mary...

Do me a favor, (oh, kind blog reader) first chance you get, go catch up with your Aunt Mary, and give her a great big hug...