Note: Because my techie husband strongly prefers WordPress (and when I have technical issues I will need his assistance) he has convinced me to post future editions of Good Evening Aunt Agnes here: http://goodeveningauntagnes.wordpress.com

* * *

On February 6th of this year, my Godmother and Aunt, Aunt Agnes passed away. I won't get into the details here, but it was fairly sudden and somewhat unexplained. She was 82, yes, but she was sharp as a tack, and lived independently, alone in her condo, since 2004, when her husband, my Uncle Norm, passed away.

Aunt Agnes and Uncle Norm had no children but they had lots of nieces and nephews (and great nieces and nephews) and had a close circle of decades-old friends.

Don't get me wrong, I always loved my Aunt Agnes and Uncle Norm (and they were always very thoughtful and generous when it came to birthdays, graduations, etc.) but I wasn't necessarily "close" with them. I could be wrong (maybe this was just my experience) but I don't think Aunt Agnes or Uncle Norm got particularly "close" to any nieces or nephews (at least when I was young) until they were fully formed adults. Not having children themselves, I don't think they could really relate to childhood and teen-phases of their niececes and nephews (not that they didn't love them, but the "developmental" phase of these family members was kind of foreign to them.) (I would like to add for a fact though how dearly she spoke of some of her great nieces and nephews, so I think that my experience was more for folks of "my" generation.)

By the time I was 29 (in 2003) (pretty well-formed, in an adultish-type way) my mom passed away after a 5 year battle with ovarian cancer. My Aunt Agnes was my mom's last remaining sibling (my mom had 1 brother and 3 sisters) and after my mom passed, I felt the urge/obligation (not in a bad way) to stay in better touch with my Godmother. Up until that point, my mom had always passed on the news to me from Canada (my mom was from Canada and that is where most of her relatives - my Canadian relatives - still live.) If I was to stay current with the news, I'd have to pick up the phone myself. (And, lucky for me, since my Aunt was now the last remaining sibling of her family, she declared herself the "Matriarch" of the family and served as the "hub" whereby Canadian relatives - living in Candada or scattered, like me, in the US or Singapore, or Switzerland, or wherever family would be working or traveling at the moment) would call her, share their news, and she in turn would share "the news" with the other family members. Though my Aunt Agnes was mentally sharp and independent until the last month or so of her life, her "world" had shrunk as a result of some of the limits of age (mobility, stamina) to consist mostly of going to church, the hair dresser, the grocery store, the pharmacy, the bank, and occasionally to Dairy Queen for a hot dog. So as there was not a lot of "news" happening in her world, she cherished hearing about the adventures of her far flung family - and even more so, she cherished her self-appointed/defacto job of relaying these stories to the extended family. And her family knew it and made a point to call her regularly.

So, as I said, on February 6th of this year, my Aunt Agnes passed away. I was with her during her last days and am so grateful I was (though her health was in decline, no one could have predicted that the weekend I visted her would be her "last weekend.")

So, after my mom passed away in Janurary of 2003, I had vowed to be more active in reaching out to call my Aunt Agnes. My husband, Rob, calls me "All or Nothing Mary" - meaning that I either don't do anything or I do it to perfection (almost to the point of overdoing it and sabotoging myself.) Well, shortly after my mom passed away (I'm not sure when the exact "point" was) I made a vow to call my Aunt Agnes every Sunday evening. And I did, for almost 10 years.

Ask any of my friends (my WONDERFUL friends!) how good I am at regularly keeping in touch. I'm not good at it. I go in fits and starts. I get depressed, I get preoccupied, I get overwhelmed with work, (I know we all do we all do) and sometimes I just loose track of time and months have passed. Things like Facebook, Twitter, email and texting have helped to mitigate this (when I am not in self-imposed isolation) but it is no substitute for picking up the phone.

So, it's kind of momentous that I kept my calling schedule for almost 10 years. Oh there were occasions that I missed (long holiday weekends would throw off my sense of time, also, a nap taken at 7pm that I did not wake up from by 8:59pm Central Time - my last window to call her before she went to bed.) But I kept my schedule. Even when my family and I traveled to Asia over the Christmas this past year, we used Skype to call Aunt Agnes for Christmas and New Years. Unfortunately, when we called her for New Year's, my cousin Richard answered the phone and told us she had been taken to the ER due to immense pain. But, Aunt Agnes was a fighter, she had battled and survived numerous health issues including multiple vascular surgeries as well as breast cancer, surely, she'd beat this one. But, that was not to be the case this time.

So, what does one do when one has reserved the timeslot of 8pm-9pm CST for 10 years to talk to someone who truly cares about their life, and that someone is no longer here on earth? Well, I thought of making it my "Catch up with Canadian realtives time" - and I still will do that with regularity, but, in reality it probably won't be every week. (And, though I know my Canadian relatives love me, I don't want to obligate them to fill the hole in my life.) I also thought of making it "Catch up with friends time" where I would actually CALL and TALK to a friend (vs FB, Twitter, email, texting) and I will probably do that too, but, for both options, I don't have the imperatave that I had to call my Aunt. I called my Aunt because my mom was no longer there to pass on news to me from Canada, because my Aunt was my closest "tie" to my mom, and because I knew that my call meant something to her. But most people are busy these days (myself included.) It takes a certain generosity of time to make a call, but for most busy people, it also takes a certain generosity to TAKE a call. Especially for people lots of responsibilities such as work, school, little kids, or all the above (and I totally get that.)

So, while I was cleaning my house this afternoon, today, the day after my Aunt's 83rd birthday, and the day I would make my weekly call to her, I've decided to try and put the things I would say to her/update her on, in this blog. Maybe, by extension, it will also help me better keep up with my friends and family (especially my Canadian relatives.) :)

So I'm going to give this a shot. We'll see what happens . . .

* * *

I'm a bit spent from my above intro to my revitalized blog so I'm going to keep the updates for this week much briefer than I normally would.

- Work is not too bad at the moment
- Rob and I saw the debut of a movie we were in this week (and Rob got a CLOSE UP!)
- I successfully completed Week #1 of training for my first 5K ever!
- Rob is enjoying his singer/songwriting class and I can see marked progress in his guitar playing and songwriting.
- The dogs are fine
- I think the multivitamins I've been taking for the last 4 months have really improved my energy level.

That's it. That's my blog entry for Week #1 of Good Evening Aunt Agnes.

Talk to you next week.

m.a.r.

Ok, I think this is what I really wanted to write about in the first place and I forgot.

I was very sad to hear that Heath Ledger passed away today. Now mind you, I haven't even seen any of his movies - I am lame. All I know are the hours I spent on the set with him for Batman. He was so enjoyable to watch. He would be filming the same scene over and over and over again (at 2am, 3am and 4am mind you!) and he was full of energy (no cocaine jokes please!) No, he really was vibrant. He was laughing and joking between every take (except for the times when he went outside to smoke - which was a lot!) He had a charisma that was infectious.

It is very weird. He was only 28 and obviously extremely talented. He should not be dead now. It is wrong. Such a waste. I am very sad that he is gone.

My only hope right now is that his talent that I saw on the set is accurately translated into the movie, and when Batman comes out (Memorial Day Weekend 2008) that people will have a chance to "see" him - in his glory - one last time.

Now I am going to bed. Sweet dreams to all and to all a good nite!

Nothing like having to write 1,667 words for NaNoWriMo to make you procrastinate by exploring all of the many features of Live Journal!

yes they did. good job!

posting to see if they got the time correct this time (I hadn't entered my time zone).