This little number is dedicated to Anna Peet, my Aunt on my mothers side.

To Auntie... You were my Aunt, Best Friend, Confidante, Sister and Mother...

Auntie was many things to me and filled the roles left vacant by parental neglect and abuse... She left this vale of tears in February 1998.

It was a cold Thursday morning in February, and I was driving a car I had just bought when I had an image of Auntie's home in the street where she lived. She was very ill in hospital at the time. Although it was a bleak and grey winters day, I saw her street with its ornamental cherry trees in full bloom,  the bright sunshine streaking through the branches and blossoms.  A voice told me to 'go home'. I wondered 'what for?' for a moment but again it came. I knew it was referring to Auntie's home and not mine and thought "but Auntie's not there, she's in Hospital - no one's there...." Again the voice urged me to 'go home'. It was 12.15 pm. I remember this as I looked at the clock in the car. I knew that Auntie didn't want to pass in hospital but at the home that she loved.  I carried on driving and went back to my own house...

In the evening I received 'that' phone call from her younger son, my cousin Richard, and he told me that she had passed some time between 12 noon and 12.30... I immediately remembered looking at the time on the clock in the car.   Now, the task ahead was to let everyone one know,  so I volunteered to do the international calls especially as the people I wished to inform had welcomed me to their homes when I visited a few years earlier, simply because I was Auntie's niece, and on our first meeting it felt like they had known me all my life - which in a way, they had - That happened with a number of her friends when I met them - it seemed that she talked of me a great deal. What I found so difficult in ringing them though was that they already knew about her 'departure' - all of them. Richard hadn't called them - no one had, and when I asked how did they know and who told them, they all replied  that 'She' had...

By the Tuesday I was getting a little worn out by this and being quite naturally upset, I totally lost my rag and threw a fit - a big one.. a total wobbler. I threw things around my bedroom and frankly screamed the place down... ' I loved her so much, why had she not come to see ME', I thought, forgetting that she had in fact done exactly that as soon as she passed by telling me to 'go home' - HER home - which I believe was the first place she visited before her journey around the world...   Exhausted I started to put my room back together again.

We all used to read cards and she used a set of playing cards I bought her from Greece with the Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses as the court figures (and a satyr with a big.... on the back!). I saw my side table draw open and spied upon the 'sister deck' to the ones I had bought for her...  'Funny' I thought...' I haven't used these for ages' and with that I closed the draw.

ERIC Before continuing,  it's worth mentioning that at that time I had three cats. Along with Minnie and Battie (the Originals), I had an orange boy-child called Eric. Being a boy-child, Eric was quite boisterous and sometimes marked his patch by leaving little Eric-sized 'parcels' around the place (you know the sort).  This is important to note as occasionally he would crawl into my bed and...! :-O   I got into bed, a large double, and as I eased myself in, on sliding slowly down the bed I felt something in the middle of it that was cold and slippery. I thought 'if he's wee'd in here I'll...'  but it occurred to me that this was more solid, as well as being cold and clammy. 'He'll be dog meat if he's left anything here I thought angrily.

This parcel was right in the middle of the bed which struck me as an unusual place for him to do this as Eric usually left his deposits at the foot of the bed as it was easier to reach and easier to escape from should I enter the room unannounced.   I ripped the bedclothes back and was stunned by what I saw. There in the middle of the bed were no little brown pellets as I suspected, but the deck of cards I had earlier seen and left in my side table draw when I closed it.

Auntie always did have a good sense of humour and fun, and I could feel her smiling at me, laughing at the fuss I had made and could have SWORN I heard a chuckle in the room...

Thank you My Love, I love you... I always have, and always will.

This poem is a small tribute to her, written for her shortly after she passed. It can never express exactly what she meant to me but it will give you an idea.  And although theses words are dedicated to Auntie and her memory, she never seems that far away...  Her love and influence live on, and she is more than a memory to me...