Sunday, February 7, 2010

AUNTIE FRAN

We sent another aunt on my wife’s side of the family to back to God last week.

When my wife was 15 years old, her mother died. Auntie Fran stepped in as a mother substitute for my wife and her siblings. She lived to the ripe old age of 88.

Auntie Fran comes from a long line of strong women. Something she passed on to, her daughter, her nieces, her great-nieces, her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter through the years. They learned so much about becoming a woman, and more importantly, about becoming a lady: strength and grace, compassion and joy, love and respect, stubbornness and determination, and faith. All qualities of a woman, of a lady, who has figured out God’s plan for her in creation and giving life and love to those she meets.

I married into this family of strong women and I, like the other men in the family, have been blessed by Auntie Fran’s influence. Through our wives, our daughters, our nieces, our cousins we know what they learned at the feet of Auntie Fran.