Looking up my Past

 My father’s one sibling, Wayne, was older and they had their tiffs all along.  They were every different temperamentally, with my uncle being older and soft spoken and not confrontational, and my dad being the rebel outsider during World War II.  My Dad was in the army air corps.  He has a pilot and crazy to boot.  My parents were married during the war and based in Texas on the border.  My Uncle Wayne and Aunt Maxine had both been married before, so they were divorced and married during the war.  I loved my Uncle Wayne, and until I was sixteen or so, he gave me a Sapphire ring whenever the old one was too small.  We didn’t see them much, but I loved him and Aunt Maxine.

When my parents died, 10 months apart, they tried to become our grandparents, and we spent one Christmas with them, and visited at least once a year.  They had retired to Florida after living in Edina, Minnesota most of their lives.  My uncle loved it in Florida:  the warmth, the red wing shoe store he bought, the Methodist church he helped rise up and was a deacon in.  My aunt Maxine hated it there, but as long as he was happy, she accepted the situation.  I never heard them argue and he was the most generous man.  She had so many lovely rings and necklaces and things.  

But when he died, I came down to see them right before, she put the house on the market in a month, and moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado to be there her sister.  Her sister had Alzheimer’s, but it was her husband who died suddenly, and she was left with her niece to help care for the sister.  Still, I think she loved it, and she was happy up until her sudden death from cancer.  I hope so.  I was lucky to have them to be relatives and help out.

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