"I want to be Gracie! I want to be Betty!"

When I was little, my late grandparents would babysit my sisters and I on Thursday evenings while my parents were at bell choir rehearsal. We had special bedtime rituals with our beloved grandmother - we watched airplanes from my bedroom window, listened to stories from her childhood, sang "White Coral Bells" and then gave each other butterfly kisses - her signature. These traditions were preceded by another treasured memory.

My grandma had seven older brothers and sisters. The three youngest were very close - Betty, Billy and Gracie. (When my grandma was seven, she became an older sister after my Aunt Margie was born.) As my sister and I prepared to get ready for bed, we would pretend we were her and her older sister. I always wanted to be Betty, maybe because we were both the older sister. My sister, Annie, was always Gracie. She was and to this day still is the spitting image of our grandmother. There would be happy cheers of "I want to be Gracie!" or "I want to be Betty!" and we would run up the stairs to bed.

From those early days I had nothing but love and admiration for my grandma and her sisters. Of my great aunts, I was the closest to my Aunt Betty even though she lived on the other side of the country in Sun City, Arizona. In the eighth grade, my Aunt Betty and Uncle Ed came to visit. Thinking it would be a nice surprise for my grandma and her sister, my parents asked Annie, Meg and I to sing "Sisters" for them. We fought it but in the end we sang for them (some persuasion in the form of $10 bills from grandpa helped our resistance) though honestly I would have done anything for both my grandma and aunt. They loved it of course!

I loved hearing stories of their youth and adolescence. Most of the stories starred my grandma and Aunt Betty and could make me laugh until I cried and my stomach hurt. The two of them were crazy. They dropped and broke a watermelon once and thought no one would notice if they pieced it back together. They had a bond that couldn't be broken though, no matter what life brought them or how many miles separated them. When the bickering and fighting between my own sisters and I got bad, I remember my mom, grandma and aunt saying..."Be grateful you have a sister." I am. My sisters are my best friends and I know that is how my grandma and her sisters felt even when they stole each others clothes or played pranks on each other.

When my grandma died in 2004, my Aunt Betty helped me through a very difficult time, which I know was also a hard time for her too, losing one of her younger sisters. We wrote letters once or twice a month for the next seven years. I have all of those letters tucked in my precious books and each one holds a special place in my heart, especially now. My dear Aunt Betty died on Monday. The last time I saw her was 2007 and we hadn't written in a few months due to her declining health. It's hard because her death makes me not only miss her but my grandma as well.

The two of them were amazing women, as were all of the sisters. I used to be an awe when looking at old photographs of their beauty and style. I am blessed to have had my grandma, Aunt Betty and all of my other great aunts in my life. They helped to shape the woman I am today.

My memories of these remarkable women will stay alive through the fabulous stories I have of us together and them during their childhood; the photographs - old and new; and all of my wonderful cousins (nine kids makes for a lot of cousins!).

RIP Aunt Betty

I love you! Butterfly kisses!

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather
openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down
upon us to let us know they are happy.”