Aunt Bess

I got a call from my dad this morning that Aunt Bess pass away last night. It was not totally unexpected. Her life had been long (96 years) and full. She has children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren surviving her, as well as nieces and nephews.

Aunt Bess would be the first to say that living a long life is hard. I remember one conversation where she now understood how her mother must have felt outliving most of her peers. Granny, my great-grandmother died at 93, after being a widow for more than 30 years.

Bess was sharp. She had trained as a teacher, and the conversations were never dull. Her sense of humor was always in play. But she was the last link to the past. My grandmother, Bess' sister has been gone almost a decade. Losing Bess is not just the loss of her, but the loss of memories of the generations she remembered all the way back to our Oregon Trail pioneers who Bess and Grams knew well.