Great Aunt Mary

I felt like titling this post "Will it ever end?" but thought this would be more respectful. On Tuesday night, my parents called to let me know my great aunt Mary had died. She broke her hip on Easter and as they were transferring her to a rehab center she stopped breathing. My aunt Mary was an amazing lady and I love her so much. She was like another grandma to me and I loved visiting her each time I came to New Mexico. She was a wonderful penpal, even to Zoe. I wish I could go to the funeral services tomorrow but money is way tight after all we've been dealing with and I just can't drag Zoe on another trip. They have been pretty hard on her lately.
Mary was the first in her family to get a real education (like, past the fifth grade) and she put her smarts to work. She wrote a book called A Roof Against the Rain. It is like The Grapes of Wrath, only better because it is true. You can check it out at Amazon or Xlibris, the publishing company. She even let me "help" her with the book. She doesn't own a computer so she had me type her manuscript and send it to the publisher. When I sent her the disk she didn't even open the envelope because she was afraid of smudging the words off of the disk. I will really really miss her. Oh yeah, that's me she's holding in the picture when I was 9 months old. Hey, that's how old Zoe is now.