AD MEMORIAM
I wrote this post three years ago.
I am posting it again because she would have been 86 today...
and we still miss her.
Thanksgiving will never be the same without her. She was ahead of her time. She was one of us. She was a humorist. She created. She junked. She transformed. She was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt and an artist. One of the last things she said before the darkness took her over---one of the her funniest quotes, which I will remember for the rest of my life was: "It is so quiet in here, you could hear a mouse pissing on a cotton ball!"
She was born Mildred Waldene Blount. Who in the world would name their daughter Waldene? Maybe that set the foundation for her fantastic sense of humor! Mildred Waldene was born on November 23rd. Not to be upstaged by Thanksgiving, my Aunt Mildred used Thanksgiving as a backdrop for her birthday celebration!
Perhaps she was the pioneer for me! You never walked into her house without noticing that things had changed. Rooms had been rearranged. Furniture had been painted, rebuilt, and refurbished. Old items had found new purposes! She didn't have to do it---she never had to work outside the home---she had the resources to buy everything new---but she had the "junkin' spirit"---she had the "eye"---she had the God given talent to create, recreate and renovate!
Aunt Mildred had the ability to laugh at life. She was a natural born comedian---a trait I hopefuly inherited. She made me laugh and tremble in fear as she told me she "would flush me down the toilet!" She took delight in making her two sons wear my pajamas when forced to stay at our home because of a winter storm! To make a long story short, she was a force to be reckoned with! She was a hoot!
Mildred Blount Gore had a wonderful marriage. She raised two extraordinary sons. She was a wonderful aunt to me. Later in life, she became a beautiful friend. I remember the day she showed up in my store with a silver tray laden with champagne and goodies to celebrate my birthday. I remember a year later when she began to tell me her stories of confusion....waking up in a ditch...strangers closing in around her...nightmares she couldn't escape. Then the darkness closed in...and alzheimers took her from us...a long, slow and painful process.Aunt Mildred, without you at Thanksgiving, it is so quiet in here. I could hear a mouse pissing on a cotton ball!
