not quite 80

Jeff's cousin Michelle called from Virginia last night to tell me her mom had died.
Auntie Arlene would have been eighty years old on the 31st of this month.
This photo was taken on a carefree Michigan boat trip way back in September of 1994.
Arlene is on the left, while her younger sister is on the right.
The original has Jeff in the photo, too, but I wanted to concentrate on the sisters.
That blonde is his mom, Mother Pat as I knew her, and she's been gone since 2007.
Both Osinski women died of cancer, though this was Arlene's third bout with it.
Both Osinski women are now together again, at least in spirit, with each other and with their younger sister Dianne, who died in 1969, in her early twenties.
Mother Pat was buried in Michigan. I had been to her funeral, in March of 2007, but not the burial, as the ground was frozen. I finally saw her grave marker on my Midwest-Canada Adventure in August of 2012.
Auntie Arlene donated her body to science and will eventually be cremated. When Mother Pat had died almost twelve years ago, Arlene and I had been talking about funeral arrangements. She had told me that she was planning to donate her body to science when she died. What a magnificent - and generous - gift to the world of cancer research!
I imagine there will be a grave marker erected in Virginia, but I don't know.
Meanwhile, I will be attending the Celebration of Life for her in Yorktown next Saturday. Jeff and I are on the same flight from Atlanta to Newport News, so that is good. We will also be staying in the same hotel and making use of the same car, so that is good, too.
I know he won't leave me stranded.
Auntie Arlene did do that to me.
It's actually one of my favorite stories about her.
(smile)

She and I and Mother Pat had gone to this ridiculously huge store called Meijers, up in Michigan. It had everything from bicycles to milk and everything in between, like Wal-Mart does now. This was early on in our marriage, so I'm guessing this was in the early 1990's.
So, we're shopping in the store, getting supplies for an upcoming family dinner. I stopped to look at a few items - I have no idea what - and we got separated.
No big deal, right?
So one would think, and so I did think. Eventually, I realized some time had passed and I had not seen either of them. I headed to the front of the store to see if they were in the check-out lanes.
No, not yet.
So, I waited up there for awhile, as more time passed.
When I still had not seen them, I decided I'd just wait by the car.
Outside into the parking lot I went, to the space where we had parked...
but the car was not there.
Was I mistaken? Perhaps... so I retraced my steps, to no avail.
The car was gone.
They had absolutely left me there.
Wow.
This was long before everyone had cell phones, or even pagers.
I did not have their home phone number on me, of course.
After all, who would ever think they would get left at a store, in a strange town?
I had certainly never thought such a thing might happen...
but it most assuredly had...
to me.
Well, I knew Jeff would eventually come looking for me.
I knew that as soon as his mom and auntie came traipsing back home without me that he would be out the door to fetch me.
And so he did, along with Uncle Larry, both apologizing for Arlene's behavior.
You see, her youngest, Brian, was flying in and she just had to be there to meet him...
even though Uncle could have, and would have, done so...
even though it meant she abandoned me at the store...
even though.
Wow.

I can joke about it now, but it was very hard on me at the time.
As it was early in my marriage to her only nephew, I didn't want to vent on her and cause a big scene, as we were all still in the stages of getting to know each other.
But I was hurt by her abandonment and disregard of me that day.
Still, I have to thank her on the lesson about this Polish family of the Midwest.
They're extremely leery of "strangers".
Perhaps it goes back to Babcia's days of making bathtub gin during the Prohibition.
(That's another of my favorite stories about Auntie.)
Perhaps it dates from their migration to the United States, where everything was strange.
However it began, the Osinski's defined "stranger" as 'one not related by blood'.
Even though I had married one of their own, I was not blood so I was a stranger.
I was not the only in-law singled out for that brand of "stranger".
Gwen received that same treatment of estrangement, even though she and David had been together for two decades.
Hollie received the same treatment, even though she and Brian have been married that long and have two children.
I was married to Jeff for fifteen years, but Auntie still regarded me as a "stranger".
Still, I respected her beliefs, different though they were from those of my own.
I loved her as part of my new family, continuing to stay in contact all these years. I didn't even hold it against her when she complained to the lawyer about a clause in Mother Pat's trust that would have eventually granted me part of those funds.
i thank God that Mother Pat had accepted me as family, early on in our marriage.
What a blessing to have had her on our side, looking out for Jeff and me up to her death... and beyond.
What a blessing, too, that Michelle is looking out for both of us, still.
I had not made it to David's funeral, back in October of 2013. I had just arrived in Las Vegas for fall break. That was my first semester back on adjunct pay and I was feeling the financial pinch. I had bought several groupon deals for my trip, to maximize the fun from my funds. Cutting short my Nevada stay to fly to Tennessee was not an expense I wanted to take on, so I had selfishly stayed in Vegas.
I'm not going to be selfish this time.
In memory of Auntie, I'll be in Yorktown next weekend.
Yes, it's costing me about $700 to be there, between the flight, hotel, car parking, and food on the trip. Yes, That's money I couldn't afford to pay if not for credit cards.
But it's only money.
It's only money.
It's only a means to an end...
and that end is the Celebration of her Life.
i thank You, God, that i can be there with the family.