{Aunt} Nancy

Do you ever just have someone you connect with?  Someone you enjoy to pieces?

My family has a lady that we call Aunt Nancy.  She's not an aunt.  She's a cousin, down the line - she could tell you exactly what generation because she's done the genealogy.  

During the first months of their young marriage my dad was stationed in the Army in Colorado and my folks became very close to Aunt Nancy and her husband Marvin (who has since passed).  I suppose they became a lifeline of sorts to a young couple who was out on their own in a "foreign land."

When we were kids, Aunt Nancy would come from Colorado and stay during the summer...sometimes a week, sometimes a month, sometimes overnight.  You just never knew with Aunt Nancy, and that was the beauty of her visit.  Life was always more fun when Aunt Nancy was in town.

In 2009, when Mike and I went to Colorado to NYR we first took a few days and stayed at Aunt Nancy's house with Natalee.  Then in 2012, when we went back to NYR with Natalee and Xavier, we decided to drop in and visit her unannounced.  When we got to the house her daughter was there and she told us Nancy was in the hospital with a bout of cancer.  Determined to see her and given her daughter's blessing that she would enjoy us stopping in, we went over.  Boy was she ever surprised to see a passel of Missouri visitors walk through her hospital door!

My mom told me that Nancy was coming through Missouri this weekend, on her way from Colorado to Ohio for her grandson's graduation.  She doesn't drive alone anymore but was traveling with her granddaughter and her family.  I really, in my heart, was desperate to see Nancy.  They got in late last night, and even though I know Mom and Dad stayed up till the wee hours visiting I was plum out of steam.  However, when Mom text this morning and said she was doing breakfast and didn't think that Nancy and crew would pull out too early I jumped at the chance to sit around the table and shoot the breeze with her.  Ameliya and I scurried around and went out for a couple hours.

What a joy to start my week out by getting to visit with someone I dearly love...

Here's hoping you all have an Aunt Nancy in your lives...just the right slice of crazy love!