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I wrote this in October, and never got the guts up to post it.  Well, it’s January now, so I might as well.

This past Sunday, my great aunt Billye Dean passed away.  If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my mention of her final instructions:

This is all very true, I can’t imagine that she would have thought memorializing someone on the Internet, much less Twitter, would have been much to brag about.  But, all I can do is offer my humble gift, via the only way anyone will get to read about her life, as she wrote her own obituary, and this is what it said:

She’s funny like that.

I honestly don’t know a lot about my Aunt Billye, or as we called her later in life, Aunt Baby.  She was extremely private about her personal life.  When my cousin, who was adopted from China, could not say “Billye,” she resorted to “Baby,” and we just all decided that would work fine.  She was born August 23, 1938 to Winifred Holland Dean and Ina Rose Buske Dean in Stanford, Texas.  She was baby sister to my grandmother, Dorothy.  I know from my grandmother that they lived through the Depression, saw electricity come into farms around Stanford, and moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, then Hobbs, New Mexico,where she grew up.  Holland Dean died unexpectedly of a brain anuerysm when he was thirty, and Ina Rose raised Dorothy and Billye by herself for awhile.  A strong, single woman begat two strong and independent daughters.  She started out at Exxon as a secretary and rose the ranks to become a leader.  She was one of the Mary Tyler Moores, and every woman who works today and doesn’t get an eyebrow raise for being “pert” should thank her and the other women who made it ok, who made it the norm.

The one thing I loved about Aunt Billye, especially when I was little, was her hair.  She had this gorgeous bright red hair, and an incredible personality.  She never married (I once heard a rumor that she was engaged, but I never asked her about it), and she was an absolute blast to be around.  She would send us fabulous presents, her old clothes to use as dress-up clothes, hats, jewelry.  She was so incredibly thoughtful; there was a hard exterior, but the hardness came from loyalty and an absolute iron-clad strength of character.  Inside, a marshmallow.

As a person, I am afraid of death.  I know, as a believer, I should not be.  I know finality on earth is not finality in other realms, but I suffer from separation anxiety.  When my aunt was diagnosed with lung cancer, she told us she had a year to live.  I took that year for granted, knowing that she would be around, I could tell her how much I loved her, how much it meant to me that she loved me, that she remembered my birthday, that she sent me articles she thought I would find interesting.  I think she knew this, but I am ashamed to say I waited too long to tell her, to make my voice say the words.  She would have hated me telling her all that, but no one dislikes hearing they are loved, and they are appreciated for their efforts in loving others.  She was here only three more months, and now she is gone.

I don’t remember the last conversation I had with my aunt.  We emailed frequently, little things here and there.  I’m ashamed to tell you that I was afraid.  Afraid of talking to her for the last time, afraid she might sound tired or sick, afraid she wouldn’t be brave, that she was in pain.  I am not well acquainted with death, and  I didn’t want to admit that this lovely person, who was loved by so many people, would be gone off the face of the earth forever.

You may notice that her own self-written obituary mentioned that if you wanted to honor her life, you could make a donation to the Houston Food Bank.  Perhaps this is my most favorite thing about her.  As far back as I can remember, when Billye moved to Houston, she volunteered on holidays at the Houston Food Bank.  She served food, talked with people, and helped clean up, like clockwork, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving.

The last time I saw my Aunt was at my wedding, five and a half years ago.  She became too sick to travel, and I never went out to see her.  We talked often, but it just absolutely destroys me that I didn’t go out there.  She never got to see Holland in person, although the internet was helpful.

When she was diagnosed with cancer, I wrote her a letter.  I flip-flopped back and forth on whether to send it, her being adverse to all things schmaltzy and sentimental, and the week before she died, I asked my mother if I should.  She told me she thought it would be nice, and so I resolved to do so, although it sat on our cabinet, waiting for a stamp, waiting for me to get my act together and send it already.

It’s still there.

When you’re alive, you never think you will die.  Maybe you hold it out as a far away notion that might one day happen, but you never think, it’s going to be me.  The idea of others, the people that you love, dying, is a terror, hiding in the deep cracks of your heart, always around you.  I can’t get through life without my husband, my daughter, my mother, my father, my brother, my grandparents, my Aunt Billye.  The world seems not as rich when these are taken out, and we sit on the floor in our kitchen and we look at the letter we never sent and the only response one can have is happening as the soup bubbles over and your daughter tells you it will be ok.  Part of you is bound up in the people that make your life, make you who you are.  I am a better person because Billye Dean loved me, cared for me, sent me birthday cards, told me I was important, that I could be beautiful and strong and ME, and don’t ever apologize for being just as much you as you can be.  But, as we all know, life goes on.  As Aunt Billye said, “Life is for the living.”  It’s cliche (but you know my feelings on cliches), but we don’t know the gift we have in life.  And we can only be grateful that people come into our lives and care for us.  It’s just the most pure thing we can know about this side of heaven, for someone to care for you, and to love you, just because they can.