Covina, CA. Nurse Julie jabs Aunt Carol. Holiday flu shots! 2002
Compared to my Aunt Carol—middle sister of 3 to my kooky barefoot Dad—I'm a terrible uncle to my 16 nephews and nieces. At least, when it comes to birthday cards. (Why can't I get in the habit of sending cards?!) Aunt Carol is real good about buying books like this that I've published, too. Books she most likely won't be sharing with the people from her church or the kindergartners and 1st graders she taught before retiring not long ago or the friends she goes hiking with. Can't say I blame her. Many a family has someone like Aunt Carol. (Molly even has her very own Aunt Carol.) Someone who shows up to most, if not all, family functions. Someone who does a good job of filling you in on what she and her adult children have been up to. Someone who remembers birthdays with a card, knows family history like it was yesterday and celebrates your lineage and the very idea of family. If you've got an Aunt Carol in the family consider yourself lucky. In the prehistoric days before the Internet, my Aunt Carol created and sent out a regular family newsletter—monthly? quarterly?—replete with Xeroxed updates on who had a baby, who got shipped off overseas, who got promoted, who was graduating, who went where on vacation, etc. You know, all the stuff Facebook gives you. Who'd have thought Aunt Carol was ahead of her time?