Aunt Carrie and Uncle Charlie are together again.

My Aunt Carrie died this afternoon at 2:30pm to be exact. She would have been 83 years old on May 31st. Aunt Carrie has been a special lady in my life.

My mother was born on December 23, 1942 and my Aunt Carrie named her. Donna Maria.

My Aunt Carrie
wasn't even 5' tall but she acted like she was 10' tall. She was a very strong willed woman but she taught me a lot about how to care for my family.

Each summer from 1975 - 1981, we would go to Florida to stay at her home. I remember waking up early a lot of mornings and watch her cook breakfast for my Uncle Charlie so he could go to work. He had to be at work around 7 am so she was up really early to make him eggs, sausage, gravy and biscuits. I don't remember homemade biscuits, they were canned but I do remember getting to eat the leftovers that she would leave on the stove. At supper time, I can always remember her cutting up my Uncle Charlie's meat. I decided to ask her one day why he couldn't do that himself. She said, "He works all day and he is the head of the house, remember that Missy when you get married that it is important to make your husband happy. This makes him happy." She always taught me to treat the man of the house with respect, even when you feel like he doesn't deserve it. Even though, I haven't married yet, I always treated my daddy with the utmost respect. Yes, daddy and I had verbal differences but when it came down to it, I never did disrespect him.

I remember the coffee pot always on. She was always ready to share a cup of coffee and she didn't waste a drop. If it got cold, she would pour the coffee right back through the coffee pot and sometimes it was so strong that only she could drink it.

Her door was always open for anyone who entered.

I remember the late nights, playing Canasta after we (Yvonne, her, my mom and I) would take turns bouncing Grace on our knees to get her to go to sleep because of colic. You would always have to be Aunt Carrie's Canasta partner because if you sat to her right, you would feed her the right card so she could win the game or if you sat to her left, then she would freeze the pot or lay down a card that couldn't be used by anyone. She liked to win at card games.

She helped raise my mother, me, my brothers, my daughter, her son's daughter and son. She adopted two girls and she raised them from infants. Between the 2 of them, they had 11 children. And 3 of those 11 children have 5 children of their own (between them). Every one knew her as nanny. She was either a mother figure or nanny to everyone.

She taught me how to make gravy. I still can't do it as well as she could. But now everytime I try to make gravy, I will think of her.

She taught me to keep my door open and be ready to feed someone when they visit. No matter who they are or what time they show up.

She also taught me that all my freckles were angel kisses. And to think that when the kids teased me at school for having freckles.

I also remember the most important thing she taught me. Take your children to church. Don't send them. How are they going to learn to go to church when they get older. Aunt Carrie didn't go to church but she always made sure that Uncle Charlie had his suit and tie ready and his shirt was ironed. Aunt Carrie and I never talked much about spiritual things because we never got the chance once I got saved and she got sick. She did tell me she was saved and that she was going to heaven when she died. My pastor used to visit my Uncle Charlie after he had his stroke, before he went into a nursing home and he would talk with my Aunt Carrie. Pastor told me that he said she told him she was saved.


She loved to watch: Perry Mason, Diagnosis Murder and Air Wolf, but mostly she loved her family.

I will miss her but I know she isn't suffering anymore.