Farewell, Aunt Helen

I'm sad to tell you, faithful readers, that my favorite Aunt and my Dad's only sibling Helen died this week. She died Wednesday morning, and it's taken me a few days to think about how I would like to pay tribute to her.


Unpleasantries first. She had fallen almost two months ago, and had broken 3 vertebrae and had basically not movement in her arms and legs since then. Plus she'd been on a ventilator the whole time. For the last two weeks there had been no response and no brain activity. On Monday, she flatlined and was gone for over two minutes, but her heart started back on its own and her heartrate was in the 20's. So later that day, my cousin made the decision to not prolong the inevitable, and on Tuesday the ventilator tube was taken out. But Aunt Helen was tough like her parents and brother, and she lasted until Wednesday morning. She was 85 years old.


Aunt Helen loved to rollerskate when she was a kid and teenager, and it was at the skating rink where she met my uncle. They married, and my aunt got a job as a bookkeeper for a furniture store, and then later on was the first person hired at the first Dodge car dealership in Louisville. I thought that was pretty cool. My uncle was transferred to California with his job and they moved from Louisville. They moved back to Louisville in the early 90's after my uncle retired. They stayed here until shortly after Grandma died, and as my uncle's health was starting to deteriorate they moved back to California.


Aunt Helen inherited the love of making things from Grandma. She loved to crochet, knit, and cross stitch, and was a faithful patron of the ceramics shop, where she made some beautiful pieces that proudly sit on bookshelves and in cabinets here at The Compound. She was also a great cook - another thing she inherited from Grandma. If I had to pick one thing she made that was my favorite, it would be her corn pudding.


Some fun memories I have of spending time with Aunt Helen are when she and I went to the movies to see "The Beverly Hillbillies" movie back in the early 90's. We both laugh till we cried at the scene where Granny is sitting in her rocking chair on the old truck and they hit a wire or something and Granny and the rocking chair were flipped off. She and I also shared a love of country music, and I remember what a great time she had when I took her to see the Statler Brothers in concert.


She and my Uncle Roy loved to play cribbage, and they would play a few games every night after supper. I wouldn't be surprised if my uncle didn't meet her the other side of the Pearly Gates in heaven with the cribbage board.