Tuesday, December 1, 2020
There were so many things I didn't know about my Aunt Karen, but these things I do. She was a kick ass Aunt and my tough, wise and loving Mom away from home. She was proud and self deprecating all at the same time. I especially loved her keen wit, sharp sense of humor and wry smile. She was beautiful and brilliant. While it is her wild yet comforting Spirit I will remember most, there were many fond memories along the way... Gin rummy and Cokes high on a Tera Alta hill in the dusk of a West Virginia summer...The best steaks I've had to this day, while perched on an old Owl's Club barstool... Listening to her and Uncle Bill's classic and mind broadening 8-Track collection on the HiFi... Packing up us and the Cousins in the old Wagoneer for the seemingly long and windy road to Kingwood to treat four giddy, excited kids to 101 Dalmations(As most of you know, she was a kid at heart, too)... Fishing in Terra Alta Lake and Snowy Creek with what I thought to be bravery(with 4 young kids in tow), but that I now know was pride and joy... Feeding me dime after dime because she knew that I desperately wanted to bring home a cheap piece of glass from the summer Carnival down at the old park... Not letting on that it was me that had emptied the old house on Sanders St.(before the fire) of every last scrap of change... The pure, unadulterated joy of the Manna from Heaven, heretofore known as my first and second and third ever Pepperoni rolls that she fed me on our walk home from the Stock Yards... The switch she gave Kenny for something he didn't do, but that even he assumed that he had, because, let's face it, it was the most likely scenario, All the while, Kevin and I giggling in the background because we knew the truth... In all seriousness, though, she was a truly great woman, and I am left with this profound sense of warmth as I recall my Aunt Karen and the relatively small yet immensely impactful amount of time that we shared together. Our Earthly loss is our Heavenly gain... Looking forward to many more Cokes and laughs with you, Aunt Karen.
