happy birthday auntie!

[Brilliant Sunshine]

Today would have been my aunt's 50th birthday but she died when she was 44 of liver and kidney failure. she weighed 500 pounds. She was a gallon a day red wine drinker. she was addicted to codeine. She was manic-depressive. and yet, she loved life, was passionate about it. i was surprised, but shouldn't have been, by how many people showed up at the funeral, maybe a hundred people, standing in clumps so they wouldn't have to associated with one another, the acid heads over here, the drunks over there, the jesus freaks in the middle, and family just shaking their heads in the wonder and disgust.

She wrote me this postcard when i was young. I was out to sea, newly married. She recently had her stomach stapled, which they had to reverse because of the drinking. She returned from this trip with the trailer full of bullet holes, claiming the "Indians" had done it.

"Dear Michael, Happy Valentines Day! I sure do think about you often. How's it going {new wife's name}? I hear you are alone some Valentines day! Hope it's OK for you both. Send this to Michael if you can. I miss him and will someday meet you and see you both. I'm living in Eugene on my own, getting well! Have my camper trailer next to the University of Oregon campus. It's a neat town, but plan by June to return to return to California. Write to me! It's lonely here. 

Love, Autie Sue

I never wrote her.

I am writing her now.



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