missed 12/4/12

I hate to post on such a sad note after being away for over a week, but I have to pay tribute to one of my favorite ladies in the whole world who went to Heaven today - my mom's sister, Aunt Linda.  She was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year - around August - and today she got called Home.

She was the one and only person I would spent the night away from home with and the one who gave me coffee to drink the only way to drink it (with tons of cream and sugar).  She made me her beauty shop date and her personal grocery store shopper every Friday.  She let me paint in her ceramic shop and sit at her craft table while she made umpteen bows to go on wreaths.  She made the best camp stew and Christmas candy every Winter (I can still see her and my mom in the kitchen.) and crocheted the baby blanket I still have as a keepsake.  She included my sister and I on family vacations and shopping trips to the mall.  Her house was the cool one with a pool table, a trampoline, and a pool we could swim in just minutes away, and she didn't miss a birthday party, even my sixteenth.  Jake and Parker adored her - they grinned from ear to ear at her from the time they were infants.  They knew she was special too.  When I think about all the memories over the years, she's in sooooo many of mine and in so many people's hearts.  My uncle, cousins Gwen and Rob, and her grandkids, Alyssa, Brannon, Dawson, and Lindsey will miss her most of all, and I'm praying especially for them today.

I posted this verse on Facebook earlier today...Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His faithful servants. -Psalm 116:15, and I believe with all my heart she was precious both in life and in death.

Miss you tons already, Lay!