Aunt Gloria

My mom posted this picture on Facebook this morning. And though I wasn't there when it was taken last year, I've seen a similar scenario play out countless times in my life. My dad, next to his sister. Laughing.

I love it.

My dad has four brothers and one sister. His parents divorced when he was a child and remarried and the result was a large family. Different cities, different states, different generations. And yet? My dad has stayed very close to his half-siblings. That's actually an odd phrase to me, half-sibling. It's not one we ever used in my family. We're family. Not half or step or anything else. Family.

This is a picture of my dad and Gloria at what I imagine is a basketball game that her daughter Blessing was playing in. Blessing is a senior in high school right now. She has an older son, Jeremy, as well. All of this is amazing to me because Gloria is amazing.

Gloria has a disease that has ravaged her body for my entire life. I cannot really remember a time when she wasn't in a wheel chair. I look at pictures of her holding me or running next to me and I have a hard time reconciling that with the woman above. Because for my whole life Gloria has been fighting MS.

If you want to argue things that aren't fair in life, get in line. Gloria is smart. Like college-crazy smart. She takes after her Uncle Ed who was one of the smartest men I've ever known, my Grandma Millie's brother who taught in Chicago. Gloria was athletic. She's funny and sweet and sentimental and I see a lot of myself in her. I love that. She's also one of the most devout Christians I know. She goes to church regularly. She makes sure I get my subscription to Guideposts magazine every year.

And she does all of this without the use of her arms or her legs. She can't feed or dress herself. She eats mostly via a tube. She talks into a microphone affixed to her wheelchair but even that doesn't help us understand her very well. You have to get up close and focus on her mouth and listen intently to figure out words and phrases. And yet? On good days, she is able to speak more normally. And when she does, she asks questions, she knows exactly what's happening with everyone in the family and the world. As I said, she's so smart. And she's trapped.

It makes me cry. It really does. And yet I have to stop and remind myself that every single day she wakes up and she greets the world and she lives in it. She doesn't just exist. She goes to her daughter's basketball games. She came to my grandparents' funerals in Howell this summer. She seems to thoroughly enjoy life. And to me, that is awesome. That's what faith and love and belief do to a person.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Gloria. I love you. You are an example of a life well lived to me and to everyone who knows you.