I have a wonderful, smart, beautiful, stylish and gifted Aunt. She is sick. She has been sick for 7 years. ALS is the culprit, and it has been a long, difficult struggle. I went and visited this Aunt over the weekend with my sister. I don't like sad feelings very much, so being the person I am, I usually don't like to think/talk/worry much about the situation she is in. At all. It hurts my heart, because she just so happens to be my favorite Aunt. We used to kneel across from each other on the side of the bed and have a silly/weird/scary face contest. It was awesome. She didn't believe in the whole, "if you make a funny face and the wind changes, your face will stay that way"...soooo, we used to do it, quite often. I also wanted to marry her, when I was little, apparently. No big deal. My mom told me. In my little head, it just seemed logical. She was awesome, and I loved her. In a 6-7-8 year old's head, people that are awesome and love each other, got married. P.s. we didn't get married.
ALS is a horrible disease. It is hard to see her, immobile, tired, struggling to talk and eat, knowing what kind of lady she was before this mess caught her. The amazing thing is, she has thee, most, positive attitude I could never imagine myslef having in her situation. Once in awhile, she likes to look us in the eye, and say things like..."I'm done"...which is understandable, but 99% of the time, she is her old self, wrapped up in a disease-riddled body.
So, as sad as it makes me feel, I am in awe of her strength. I love her.
Also, on a side note, she has some wonderful help in the form of compassionate, positive, loving ladies that come and work at the house day-in and day-out. My hat's off to them.
