My aunt Lois was one of my favorite aunts.  She passed away this week.  I have so many memories with her.  When I was little our family spent a lot of time with her family. 

     We went to a cabin in northern Pennsylvania with Aunt Lois, Uncle Elmer and their four boys.  I remember once she, my mom and I taking a walk around this pond there and hearing the telltale rattle.  She grabbed my one arm and my mom grabbed the other and they ran with me between them.

     When I was really young they had lived in a town about 30-45 minutes away.  My mom would often take us down to her house and we would often stop at Dunkin Donuts and pick up a box to treat everyone.  My sisters and I would play with her boys in the basement and all the sudden someone would call, "Boy! These donuts sure are good!"  And all of us would come flying up the stairs.

     My aunt was very affectionate with her boys.  I often seen her hugging one or the other and I would think to myself, "Doesn't she understand that boys hate all that affection?"  It wasn't until after I had a son of my own that I realized that I was the one who misunderstood and I wrote her that Christmas and told her so.  My aunt would often hug us as well. 

     One of my hardest memories of her was one year when my father was almost killed in a gas explosion.  He was in the hospital for a long time and my aunt had offered to take me along with her extended family at the mountains.  It was nice and everyone was nice to me but no one really bothered with me and I remember feeling very much alone....far away from my own family.  I remember Aunt Lois coming up to comfort me and then she took me, her husband and four boys out for a walk just to spend some time together.

     Aunt Lois was a nurse and for a time we both worked at a nursing home.  I remember once they had bought a new car that smelled like cigarettes inside.  I teased her that she smoked and every time the smoke alarm went off in her section of the Home, I would call her and tease her about her cigarettes setting off the smoke detectors.

     This fall my aunt knew there was something wrong.  She couldn't keep anything down.  Around Thanksgiving we learned the truth.  Aunt Lois had stomach cancer.  My sisters and I all shook our heads in disbelief.  "Not Aunt Lois!" We all said.  Even after visiting with her in the hospital it was hard to believe how serious it was.  And yet, in my CHristmas Card, I was going to let her know how special she was to me so I wrote her a letter and I told her I loved her.  I am so glad I did.  It seemed to spiral after that.  They removed most of her stomach and treated her with chemo.  It disappeared in the stomach but reappeared a short time later in her lymph nodes and then her lungs.  They got the chemo again and it went away but last week she got sick again.  Unbeknownst to us until after her death, the cancer had returned with a deadly aggression. My mother and father went in to visit with her Wednesday night and my mom came home and said, "Well, her color seems to be better and we all went to bed thinking she would pull through it.  Her third son,Dwight, was going to stay with her that night..... however after everyone left, she flatlined.  She revived her but declared her brain dead.  Once the family gathered to be with her, it was decided that she had suffered enough.  They opted to pull the plug.  Within 10 minutes she was meeting Jesus.

     Now she is no longer in misery and pain. 

     My sister had went in to be with the family and she said after Aunt Lois died, she had a vision of her with long brown hair sitting in a field of flowers.  She said it seemed to comfort the family when she told them.  I don't discount the story because I have had visions myself. 

     On Monday is her Memorial Service.  Please pray for her husband, Elmer, four sons, daughter in law and two grandchildren that she absolutely adored. 

     Till we meet again, Aunt Lois!  Hug my little Morgan for me!