A week or so ago I received in the mail from a first cousin in the Grapevine, Texas area the sweetest card that also had tucked inside an envelope full of old photos.
It included a note letting me know what the photos were and that she had taken the time to gather them up. She said most were duplicates that her mother had made so she had the orignals.
Her late mother, my Aunt Bonnie, was one if not my favorite aunt. I want to assure those reading this that I loved and admired all my aunts and uncles. But Aunt Bonnie and I just had a bond that I didn’t have with the others.
But my Aunt Bonnie was just special from the time I was old enough to know who she was. I was around her a lot at an early age and there was a good reason.
One of the photographs I will always cherish has my mother and Aunt Bonnie in it.
Following my mother’s death, I spent a great deal of time staying with my mother’s parents as I previously mentioned. What was good about that, it was a huge house on NW 32nd Street in Oklahoma City and Aunt Bonnie was still living there.
I got to spend a lot of time around her. My dad waited about 2 ½ years to remarry following my mother’s death and when he did, he married my mother’s sister, my Aunt Roberta, who was nearly 14 months younger than mother and almost five years older than Bonnie.
She and Aunt Bonnie were so close, though, and, like Aunt Bonnie, was also living with my grandparents while dad was dating her. When dad married, I was well acquainted with my new “mother”.
One of the things I so enjoyed about Aunt Bonnie was her personality. She had this contagious laugh and she was so funny. If she was anywhere in the house, you knew it, because you could hear her, especially if she was laughing.
She also was so sweet. I can still remember some of the talks we had when she was still living with my grandparents and as I grew older.
What I probably appreciated about her most, though, was she would talk to me about my maternal mother. She wasn’t afraid to do that, while others in the family hesitated to do so or, when they did, it was difficult for them.
Some of the old photos I had never seen before. I had seen some of the others, and I have them framed already but will hand onto these in case other people want them or I want to hand them down to my daughter and/or grandson.
A few of them were before my maternal mother Mary passed away in December of 1951, while several others were shortly afterwards. There’s even one I there she passed along from 2002 of Pat and me together.
What these photos did was get me to thinking about way back when I was a kid growing up and some of the memories I have from back during those days.