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Condolences to CathyCA and her family on the loss of her great aunt Marguerite, who passed today just a month short of her 98th birthday.

Tell us about her, Cathy. I hope her life was full and rich and that the end came gently. I bet you were a joy of hers.
Love, Ima

Prays and vibes for you Cathy and your family. I also, would like to hear about her.

Thoughts, prayers, and vibes to you, Ms CathyCA on the loss of your great aunt. I know she was very special to you.
for you and your family.

So sorry, Cathy. Sending thoughts and prayers to you and your extended family on your loss. I hope your great aunt's passing was gentle and peaceful for her.

I'm thinking of you and your family, CathyCA

Thank you all for your kind thoughts about Aunt Marg.

I've been busy tending to details including meeting with the funeral home, meeting with the Chaplain, writing her obituary, finding her friends and explaining to them that she died (and hoping that they remember). I have another meeting with the funeral home this morning.

Aunt Marg's memorial service will be on Saturday, July 16 at 10:00 at Cypress Glen here in Greenville. We'll have a reception for her friends, and then we'll drive up to Ashland, VA for her burial.

I'll write about Aunt Marguerite this weekend. I'm very busy today and tomorrow getting some things off my desk in preparation for our week at the beach.

I'm emotionally exhausted, and my mom is even more exhausted than I am.

Thanks again for your kind thoughts.

Prayers for comfort for you, your family, and all of Aunt Marg's friends. May memories of her wonderful life keep her close to your hearts.

Cathy,

Mega vibes to you and your family. Thinking of you all.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

-EarlJam

Prayers and vibes for you, Cathy, and your Mom, and all those who loved your Aunt. She sounds like an exceptional lady.

So sorry for your loss CathyCA. Vibes to you and the family.

Vibes still coming, CathyCA.

Continued thoughts, prayers and vibes for CathyCA and family.

Much sympathy for you and your family.
Try and enjoy your week away.

I'm sorry for your loss Cathy.
A week at the beach will give you time to rest and think.
There's a lot to be said for peaceful silence, once in a while.

I'm having a quiet moment this afternoon, so I thought I would share with you the notes I've made for my remarks that I'm giving at Aunt Marguerite's memorial service tomorrow. I may not say everything that I've written down. In fact, I'm certain that I will be editing my notes as the other four speakers are talking. Mom has asked me to speak last, and I'm honored that she's chosen me for that task.

*********************************

Aunt Marguerite was my mom’s mom’s younger sister. Grandmother died when I was 2 years old. Sadly, I don’t remember her, but I know that my grandmother loved me because my Aunt Marguerite never let me forget that love. She was a wonderful great-aunt.

My first independent memory is of my third birthday party at the old parsonage in Scotland Neck. Aunt Marguerite and Uncle Ertice were there. They gave me a chalkboard on an easel, which I loved to use when I played school.

Aunt Marguerite and Uncle Ertice were always there for us on all of our special occasions. They came to all of our events to celebrate and to cheer us on: birthday celebrations, baptisms, confirmations, graduations and weddings. Aunt Marg sat in the seat my grandmother would have occupied at my wedding. Twenty years ago, she accompanied me on my first shopping trip to buy maternity clothes.

Aunt Marg instilled in all of us a love of travel. She and Uncle Ertice traveled to all 50 state capitals. I remember that she would send souvenir postcards from their trips. When they visited Arizona, she sent me a dress that the Navajo women had sewn. When they visited Alaska, she sent me an Eskimo doll. When they visited Hawaii, she sent me a lei made of dates, which I happily shared with my first grade classmates. Uncle Ertice sent two vials of Hawaiian sand for me to share at “Show and Tell.” When they traveled to the land down under, she sent me a stuffed koala bear. Em and David got tribal masks and swords from Fiji and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police figurine from Canada. On many of their trips, she purchased charms for my charm bracelet. Mom tells me that Aunt Marg used to purchase salt and pepper shakers as souvenirs of their travels for my great grandmother because Granny was diabetic. We all loved to see the slide shows of their travels and to hear of their great adventures across the world.

Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice took us to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Charlottesville and Monticello and to Washington, D.C. They joined us at Holden Beach in the summers.

Aunt Marg was quite the correspondent. She wrote letters to Mom on a weekly basis. Aunt Marg always typed her letters, and as soon as I learned to read, I could read Aunt Marg’s letters because I didn’t have to decipher adult handwriting. She wrote about how she and Uncle Ertice were always busy visiting friends and relatives, going to the PX, planning a trip, going to yard sales to scout Avon, or to post offices to collect stamps, working in the yard planting flowers and tending to their shrubs, or going bowling.

Aunt Marg never drove a car, but she knew her way around all of Richmond. When we visited her, she took us to the huge department stores with the escalators downtown, and to the malls in the suburbs. Aunt Marg always had a change purse full of coins, and she would put a nickel in the hobby horse outside of the Woolworth’s at Willow Lawn so that we could ride the horse. She would also give us a nickel to put in the machine so that we could watch the amazing dancing chicken. When “the rides” were set up in the parking lot at Willow Lawn, Aunt Marg would buy tickets so that we could ride the little roller coaster or circle around in the little boats or the little cars or motorcycles. She took us to the Virginia State Fair where I had the longest pony ride of my life when the pony ride operator left his post and engaged in a fist fight with another man outside the pony ride tent. I remember looking over at her smiling face and exchanging waves with her as chaos ensued around her. One time, Aunt Marg won an old fashioned milk can in a drawing at the Virginia State Fair. All of us were as excited to hear Aunt Marg’s name called as the winner of the milk can as if she had won a million dollars.

Aunt Marg took us at Christmas to see Santa Claus at Miller and Rhodes. Em and I were always so thrilled as we approached Santa that he could call our names. “Here comes Cathy and Em from Scotland Neck.” We were convinced that the real Santa Claus lived in Richmond, and that Aunt Marg had some sort of special access to him. She would then take us to a special lunch with Santa Claus and the Snow Queen in the tea room at Miller and Rhoads. Later, we would ride the Santa Claus train from Richmond to Ashland and back.

We loved to visit Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice’s home. I delighted in looking at (and touching!) all of the knick-knacks she had collected on her travels, watching the magic drinking bird on top of the refrigerator, playing pool with Uncle Ertice, and playing my piano pieces on their organ. Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice were so generous and patient to share their home with us.

Aunt Marg loved her dogs. She had Sparky, Blackie, Andy, Kai and Luv. We loved it when Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice came to visit because they would bring their dog to our house. Aunt Marg taught her dogs how to do tricks like jump through hoops and to roll over. Walking the dogs gave Aunt Marg a way to exercise and to visit with her neighbors, including her new neighbors here at Cypress Glen. Her dogs brought her great joy.

Aunt Marg was so good to her sister, our Aunt Alma. Uncle Ertice would drive Aunt Marg over to the Hermitage, the Methodist Retirement Community in Richmond, so that they could visit regularly. We always enjoyed our visits with Aunt Alma when we went to visit Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice in Richmond, and we loved our visits with Aunt Alma when Aunt Marg and Uncle Ertice would drive her down to North Carolina to see us. Aunt Alma liked to make ceramics, and Aunt Marg would display Aunt Alma’s handiwork in her house on Forge Road.

Aunt Marg was good to all of her family members. She loved to visit with all of her nieces and nephews and cousins. She honored the memory of her family members who had passed on by visiting their graves. Aunt Marg made sure that I knew where our ancestors were buried. She and I and Mom have traipsed through several old country cemeteries, including those at Dunns Chapel United Methodist Church and the one near the South Anna River where my grandmother was baptized, and, of course, the Woodland Cemetery in Ashland where we will lay her to rest this afternoon.

Aunt Marg found great joy in making connections with everyone. She loved everybody. I’m certain that each of us—her family, her Cypress Glen family, and her family of friends--has a special story about Aunt Marg. She had a way of making everyone feel so special and loved.

I have been privileged to live in Greenville for the past three years, affording me the pleasure of visiting with Aunt Marg here at Cypress Glen. Even when she lost her ability to walk and to communicate through ordinary conversation, Aunt Marg was able to say, “I love you.” What a gift she gave us through those words!

On Wednesday, June 29, as Mom and I held our sweet Aunt Marg’s dying hand, I felt a great spiritual connection to Granny and Grandpa Howard, to Aunt Alma, to Uncle Ertice, and to my Grandmother Traynham. I thought about how happy they must have been to have welcomed Aunt Marg into their lives so many, many years ago. I realized that, even in the midst of our sorrow and grief, there must be great rejoicing in heaven as those saints who have passed on before us were welcoming Aunt Marg into their company.

Our family is so very blessed. We are so rich in love. I will miss her terribly, but Aunt Marg’s love will live on in my heart, and in the hearts of our family, forever.

That's beautiful Cathy. Simply beautiful.

OZZIE4DUKE wrote:That's beautiful Cathy. Simply beautiful.

Thank you, Ozzie.

She sounds like such a wonderful woman, CathyCA. You are truly blessed that she was a part of your life.

What a wonderful sentiment for a lady who meant so much to you and your family.

Tomorrow will be a hard day for you; we are all sending prayers, vibes, and much love in your direction.