Aunt Evelyn

I met my Aunt Evelyn ( my father's sister) a few times when I was little, and through my father's telling me about her, and a few pictures, I got to know her ...

... and then we started writing back and forth a few times a year when I was 10 or so...  I continued to, with her telling me the good and bad things going on in her life, to share with everyone, until she got too sick and died, in her early 50's, of  the diabetes she'd delt with for years ...

I was the family liason because at that point, I was the only one with time to write often, and phone calls were expensive and left to one on Christmas or New Year's, usually.....................

I still remember the arrival of the Lei from Hawaii and the fresh dates from California that arrived during Christmas week when I was growing up. They were to the family. She was a stewardess for American Airlines. I never got gifts from her, only the photos and letters, personally... but when I got married, not long before she passed on,  she sent me a cut crystal salad bowl set that I treasured.

As terrible as it sounds to say it, I don't know what became of it in all the changes that have occurred in my adult life, but the memory of it means as much as the actual bowl did, and it's locked in my heart... safe and sound...................... and so is her smile