It seems like there's been so much illness and loss on the site recently... and I'm sorry to bring more, but if you can send up a good thought for my Aunt Helen, I'd be so grateful.
She's my mom's youngest sibling, just ten years older than I am, and she's a little sparkplug, I tell ya -- cute as a button, always laughing and being silly... when she comes to visit, it's like one long pajama party.
She's my favorite relative, and my middle name was chosen after hers (Marie).
But she's had such a lot of sadness in her life. Her son by her first marriage was killed by a train at 18, and her husband Jack has been battling various kinds of cancer, plus the complications of all his surgeries, for the past decade, often coming within a hairsbreadth of losing.
Jack is just a wonderful man, and we all adore him -- and their son, Jack Jr., is the cousin I've told you about who is an Army captain and was posted to Kuwait a few weeks ago (potentially ending up in Iraq). So you can imagine how frightened Aunt Helen is, having already lost one son.
So her job is the sole support of the family now, because Jack can't work anymore, and she has to handle a lot of special medical care for him on a daily basis. And tomorrow, she's having some sort of procedure done for an abnormality in her breast, and it's just one thing too many, y'know? She doesn't have a whole lot of strength left in her to keep on coping.
Maybe you can help me hope her through this procedure tomorrow, and let her get some good news. It's time she had some good luck.
She's my mom's youngest sibling, just ten years older than I am, and she's a little sparkplug, I tell ya -- cute as a button, always laughing and being silly... when she comes to visit, it's like one long pajama party.
But she's had such a lot of sadness in her life. Her son by her first marriage was killed by a train at 18, and her husband Jack has been battling various kinds of cancer, plus the complications of all his surgeries, for the past decade, often coming within a hairsbreadth of losing.
Jack is just a wonderful man, and we all adore him -- and their son, Jack Jr., is the cousin I've told you about who is an Army captain and was posted to Kuwait a few weeks ago (potentially ending up in Iraq). So you can imagine how frightened Aunt Helen is, having already lost one son.
So her job is the sole support of the family now, because Jack can't work anymore, and she has to handle a lot of special medical care for him on a daily basis. And tomorrow, she's having some sort of procedure done for an abnormality in her breast, and it's just one thing too many, y'know? She doesn't have a whole lot of strength left in her to keep on coping.
Maybe you can help me hope her through this procedure tomorrow, and let her get some good news. It's time she had some good luck.
