The aunt with the strange name

My father had two sisters and two brothers. There is only one left now, an uncle just an hour's drive from me. He is 91.

Two of them died many years ago, my father died 6 years ago, and my aunt died at age 97 in a skilled nursing facility in California 3 weeks ago. I already had this trip planned, knowing that she was ill and frail. I just didn't know how frail and that last August was my last time to hug her and tell her how much I loved her.

I called her Peaches. When she was born, her father held her and said, "She's a peach!" That wasn't her name, but many people called her that.

She was married three times but had no children. She traveled and lived in African countries and India but never contracted an illness. She left her home in Wisconsin and was adopted by a wealthy lady who had no children. Their devotion to each other endures.

On the plane to California, I wrote several paragraphs of my novel, In An Elephant's Footprint. After arriving, my sister met me, and we went through our aunt's belongings, deciding what to keep, what to offer to other family members, and what to leave at the home for other residents. It was about the hardest work I've ever done. Peaches and I were very close, and I made her end-of-life decisions, but this cleaning up, these thousands of decisions threw me. After we finished (the second day), I slept for 14 hours. I couldn't write another word of my novel. Couldn't even think about it.

I was very happy to find, in one of Peaches' boxes, a ream or two of her writing, from a young girl to middle age, some published, some just typed on an old manual. Maybe she chose me to be her next of kin because she knew that I would read her stories and learn from them, and that is my plan.

Peaches, you took the longest journey of your life and didn't need to take anything with you. Thank you for the privilege of viewing your life and leaving me with the most precious of gifts -- your thoughts.