By Great Aunt, I mean she was my dad's Aunt. Her name is SO unusual that I'm not going to use her real name here because it would make it WAY to easy for someone to track my family (not that y'all are a bunch of stalkers, but you know I probably should be kind of careful!) I'll just call her Auntie (something I never called her, BTW).

Auntie was big on the power of positive thinking. In fact, I still have a book she gave me when I was a young teen, "The Power of Positive Thinking for Young People" by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. She was also a HUGE Kahlil Gibran fan. Personally, I think she was way ahead of her time with the now ever so popular "The Secret".

Auntie died many years ago, on my dad and brother's birthday (they share a birthday). I think that was a true testament to how much she loved my dad. I've learned through Hospice that people have a lot more control over when they die than most people would like to believe. Auntie died in her sleep, most unexpectedly, but still I think there's a lot of meaning on the day she 'chose' to die. I was also the last person she had coffee with. Here's an excerpt from one of my blog entries where I wrote more about her:

My aunt had a collection of tea cups. She told me that when she got up in the morning, she'd decide who she was going to have coffee with and pull their tea cup from the shelf. She'd then drink her coffee from that cup and think about that person. She drank coffee with me the last day of her life.

When my dad's sister went to her condo after my aunt died, she found my teacup in the sink unwashed. She sent me the unwashed tea cup along with all of the letters I'd ever written my aunt, bundled in a large rubber band. What a gift that was.

Auntie was very special to me and had a great influence on me. She was like a grandmother to me, and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a month with her on her ranch back when I was 12. It was a bad time for her, as she had just lost her beloved husband only a couple of weeks before I arrived, yet I recall very few times that she wasn't her usual positive self.

I've felt Auntie around me lately. She didn't believe in the afterlife, and I suppose she was in for a big surprise (I chuckle at the thought that she's probably watching me type this, actually). I even wore a ring she gave me yesterday to Thanksgiving, that was hers, made from her husband's dental gold after he died. I'm sure some would think that's gross, but it's special to me because I know how special it was to her. I've never worn that ring before. But I saw it in my jewelry case and just kind of wanted to bring her along to Thanksgiving. It just felt right.

Today, one of my bestest pals sent me a quote. It wasn't just to me, it was to several people, so I know she wasn't sending it to me as a "hang in there Lori". It gave me chills to read it, because of the timing of it all:

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
-Kahlil Gibran

When I read that, I understood even more about what an influence Auntie was on me. And I know beyond a doubt that she still is.