Remembering aunt C ,dinner and short visits.

If we walk in the light as Jesus is in the light, we have friendship with each other , and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

1John 1: 7

It is a small world.

Shortly after my parents left I met a lady in her sixties. How or when we first met I don’t know. We shared the same birth place, Port Elizabeth in South Africa. She was already a teenager when she knew my mum as a child. Aunty C and Dr C had brought up their family here.

If I went down my road of terraced houses then through a snicket (a path used by bikes and pedestrians ) then turned left her semi detached house was on my left. Her home was extraordinary. There was very little space to sit as the whole home was filled by a man’s passion for books. They had provided him with a couple of doctorates and the theory in them had left him unable to part with any. He had grown round and either shuffled between his ‘beloved books’, (as she disdainful called them ) or sat at the dining room table writing for days on end except Thursdays.

Thursday was her day. She would cook a big lunch and invite anyone who would come. Anyone she thought looked like they needed feeding. She thought I was very thin so she always wanted me at the table. Dr. C was quite grumpy about it with his napkin / dish cloth under his chin and tied behind his head. Her joy in serving was seen in her big smile, steamed up glasses, apron tied up under her ample bosoms and her laughter that often brought tears to her eyes. She spent a lot of time laughing at her spouses funny ways he really was a character.

One day we were sitting outside on a plank of wood with four metal legs . A sturdy seat her son had made while at school when she announced. “Tomorrow, I’m having a caravan delivered it is going right here, Sandy.” With her hands stretched at the ends of her arms she showed me a good space.

The caravan was delivered. She had her space!

Aunty C loved her garden. She bothered very little about the lay out of the garden. Design was not her forte but each plant was a destination. “Come, you must see this. Isn’t this a different pink. Look at this cabbage it’s much bigger than the one I grew last year.”

Her constant thankfulness to God was not just thought but said. A friend remembers that she had broken her arm and then promtly said she was so thankful it wasn’t her right arm. What was difficult she made a joke about and my memory of her is her face squished up in laughter.

I don’t think she went to her husband’s funeral but all those books went soon after he left. She had the house painted and enjoyed it all to herself for a few years before she too went to her rest.

We were at her funeral and so were many others. Aunty C the person we loved so much resting till Jesus comes.

Thank you for reading about my special person, Aunty C.

Sandy 🙂