Tillie

This is a picture of my Aunt Tillie when she was "Mrs. Atlanta". She is an artist and always hand makes her Christmas cards. When I was little I loved going to their house. When you walked into their entrance hall, there was a little babbling brook that ran the length of their front hallway. On Halloween when everyone gave out store bought candy, my Aunt made popcorn balls to hand out to the kids. What a treat! At Christmas time her tree had little water filled ornaments that bubbled and glowed in different colors. She made me a huge toy box one Christmas. It was red and shaped like a train car for a traveling circus. The front had black bars going from top to bottom and she had painted a picture of three monkeys peering out through the bars. it was one of the neatest things I have ever been given. As you can tell from the picture, she was a real looker. She in turn had two daughters who were as well and her grand daughter is just as pretty (wish my side of the family had gotten a little more of THOSE genes). She was married to my Dad's brother for years and years, he died of a heart attack years ago, but growing up around them was always such a treat. They had a big ole boxer...Benji that everyone loved. Tillie is one of the most talented people I have ever met and her artistic flair surrounded everything she did or made. I kept that toy box well into my teen years. It opened from the top, had two rope handles on either end and even had wheels on the bottom. It looked like you could have hooked it up in front of a caboose and never known it was just a toy box. It's weird how some things stick out in your memory. No telling how long it took her to make that toy box...but the fact that it was such a thoughtful and personal gift meant the world to me and still does to this day. She is the matriarch of our family now...it seems like only a few years ago we were all just kids piling into our car on Halloween night to go get our popcorn balls or going to her mother's house a couple of doors down to look at all of her grandfather clocks. Family is a wonderful thing to have, so many people are left without any semblance of feeling loved by not only parents but aunts, uncles and cousins. I had it all. My kids are growing up the same way. They adore their cousins, aunts and uncles. They adore the only grandparents they have left and have been told countless stories about the ones that have already departed. Times are so different these days, but love is a never changing feeling and emotion. Love just grows if you let it and is always a comfort and a reminder of how truly lucky you are. Tillie is till cranking out her homemade Christmas cards, her eye sight is failing but her grand daughter addressed them for her this past year. I have so many wonderful relatives and even though we don't get together as often as we'd like...we love each other as much as we did when we spent our youth around each other on a weekly if not sometimes daily basis. I wish my parents were still here, I wish all my relatives were...but to have been part of such a great family is a feeling that never goes away or fades. Just a little trip down memory lane for me...thanks for letting me drag you along.