Two weeks ago

Saturday, February 14, 2015

My beloved Aunt Judy committed suicide.


I am not angry, because I feel too deeply what she may have felt. I know the urge.

It seems she was very ill, advanced breast cancer, and no one knew. Not even her husband who found her in their back yard once her task was complete knew about the cancer.  She would have turned 60 years old on the 7th of February.

I am not angry because I understand the impetus to just be done with it - no weird mourning or accolades or fuss. Just getting on with it all, because. That is what we do in my family. Just get on with it.

My aunt was 15 or so when I was born in 1970. She was not impressed with the loud interloper who shared her bedroom with she and my teen mother.

She was my godmother.

She loved me unconditionally and seemed to "get" all versions of Dawn Ann, even when the 7 year old me would bounce on top of her sleeping form. She would yell "RUDE AWAKENING!" and burrow under the covers. This meant I should bounce harder and attempt to root her out of her nest.

She would let me swim for hours, patiently watching all my tricks from the edge of the pool.

She married three times and had no biological children of her own.

She joined the Navy in the 1970's. She was a coal miner who integrated a mine as the first female employee.

She survived a domestic violence incident with her second husband that left her femur broken in more than one place.

 In 1998, she married her third husband, Kurt. She seemed very happy with him. He made her laugh and he thought she was amazing.

She was amazing.

I loved her.

She is gone and my heart is broken in a way I can't quite express in words.

I am not angry with her because I love her. She will always be my glittery, blonde, tall, beautiful Aunt Judy.


 
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