Florida

My heart is in Florida today.

My dear Aunt Millie died on Saturday and was buried in a military cemetery today near her beloved husband, Warren.

My mom and dad each had a sister. Millie was dad's. She was 15 months younger than dad, and he watched over her.

My dad never had a bedroom of his own until he was married. His family lived in an apartment and the two bedrooms went to my grandparents and Aunt Millie. He had the couch in the living room.

Aunt Millie had a beautiful voice. An operatic voice. In fact she studied down in NYC with some very famous vocal instructors. My dad paid for those lessons, she was destined to be in the opera. But alas, she could not memorize the languages. So her singing career was confined to singing in my dad's band, and in the church choir.

My grandparents were musical, my grandmother played the organ at church, almost until the day she died. My grandfather directed the choir. Both Millie and my dad would sing with the choir and later would make guest appearances when they would put on a cantata.

Aunt Millie married Warren, who was a superb tenor. They had a band together and later sang in church choirs, the contralto and the tenor.

Our families actually lived on the same street for several years, in Rye. Terrace Court. I remember Aunt Millie, and mom, always wore dresses. Even when one was cleaning the house, house dresses. It was fun to live on the same street as relatives.

When Uncle Warren died, she moved to Hilton Head, to be near my folks. I saw her frequently then. She made many of our family reunions up at the lake. I remember her in her upper 70's riding the big jet ski and making us promise not to tell Peter, her son. He would be unhappy to see her in a potentially dangerous situation. She made the best scrambled eggs for us all and fried up pounds of pounds of bacon each morning. She loved Bridge and would play several times a week, even up until a few months ago.

One of our other favorite memories was when she was about my age, Rob and I were visiting her in Florida and we all went out water skiing. Rob had never tried and made a valiant effort but never got up, I skied for a bit but Aunt Millie showed us all how to really ski! She took off from the dock, skied all around and then they dropped her off at the beach. She skied onto the beach, and stepped out of the ski. I don't think her bathing suit was even wet, I know that not a hair in her recently coiffured head was out of place. We were very impressed!

I'm glad I was able to spend the week with her before she died. When she saw me in Florida the first night she sort of sat up in bed and exclaimed, "Am I dying? Oh wait, I'm dying!" How does one respond to that? Yes, and I'm here to tell you that I love you. We said that alot to each other that week.

I'll miss her and her indominable spirit. But she loved the Lord. So someday, Aunt Millie, we will all be together again!!

Love you!