I haven’t seen her since my mother’s funeral 15 years ago.
She was ALWAYS my favourite and because she had three sons, I was her first and favourite niece, who she always treated like a daughter.
Today I attended meditation and about ten minutes in, The Motivator called me out of the room. There was a woman standing with her back to me and TM pointed to her and said “There’s a lady here who wants to speak to you.”
I looked up and waited for the lady to turn around.
She did NOT turn around and almost immediately I recognised that she was my Aunty.
I said “I know who you are. Turn around!”
She turned and I saw that beautiful face looking older and wiser but very much the loveable Aunty from my youth.
I’ve only seen her twice in 40 yrs and both times it was at one of my parent’s funerals.
I just wanted to stay wrapped in her loving arms and listen to her talk all day.
I immediately rushed her out the door and off to sit quietly with a coffee, to share the quick verbal diarrhoea that happens when you have so much to say and you’re unsure how much time you’re going to have to talk privately.
We had about an hour together before Adoring Husband appeared. He had known AJ was coming and had struggled to keep the secret from me, but he was successful on this occasion.
We drove home and she met the psychotic dogs. She loved them immediately.
I took her straight out to the pool area and we sat under the Bali hut for an hour talking a mile a minute. Her, telling me stories about her life and me asking questions and gaping in awe as she told us about the time Rod Stewart baited her fishing hook and about the time she met The Eagles and numerous other famous bands and singers when she owned the music shop in Toombul years ago.
It all happened while I was travelling Australia with my parents and living in Perth. That’s why I missed all the action.
Soon we came indoors for a cup of tea and Adoring Husband took control in the kitchen while she and I continued with our insatiable chatter. He prepared us a light lunch which she mostly fed to the psychotic dogs.
As close as we were, there are sections in our lives where we lived on different sides of the country and where contact between her and my parents was patchy and there are large gaps in our knowledge of each other’s life story. This meant that we learnt lots of new stuff about each other today.
All too soon, we knew our time was coming to an end and our chatter slowed down considerably.
We drove her to her pick up point - a friend from Maryborough drives a school bus and had dropped her off this morning where TM had collected her and brought her to the shop.
The Motivator had planned this surprise with AJ and AH. I am very grateful for the effort required to pull this off and I hope you all can appreciate how happy I have felt today 🥰
It was a beautiful surprise and I thoroughly enjoyed my day.
AJ will come to stay for a week some time in the second half of the year.
After we dropped her off, we had to drive in to pick up our FROG box.
It was trivia night tonight, but we were “done in” by our big day so we cancelled. It seems that that the rest of our team were not really up for it either, so it turned out ok for everyone.
Now it’s time for some sleep.
Nite all.
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