When I was a child I only got to see Aunt Barbara on special occasions like Christmas and a few summers when weeks with her and my cousin Michael (before my cousin Nicole was born). Outside of Michael and me fighting like cats and dogs, it was so much fun. SHE was fun. And I could see myself in her. I remember when we pulled up to a bank teller in her Mercedes one summer and I don’t remember what the problem was, but she wasn’t having it! And since I was literally the only person in my immediate family born with a strong “fighter” personality, I just remember being STOKED! Maybe I DID have a genetic link to my sweet, passive mother! I wasn’t dropped into my family from another planet as my dad had jokingly proclaimed! Aunt Barbara was my evidence! We were a lot alike. But please, as I continue to boast about her beautiful qualities, I am definitely not thinking about myself.
Barbara was glamorous and beautiful. She could have been a model. Seriously. She looked like a model in her 20’s and 30’s. She traveled the world and enjoyed life. She loved life. She loved people and they loved her back. She loved collecting things (as I do) and the things she was able to collect from her glamorous lifestyle were fine indeed. She was also hard-working. She didn’t mess around. She was a loyal, work-your-butt-off employee of Continental Airlines for 35 years.
In 1993 I moved to Houston and lived with Aunt Barbara and my cousin Nicole (who had been living with me in Oklahoma). It was then that I learned of her generous heart. I tell everyone this because, well, it’s true; she would give anyone the shirt off of her back. She was never afraid of running out of money or giving too much. If she was I never knew it. I lived with her for a year and a half and she never asked me for anything. I was too dumb to offer her very much at all. I was eating her delicious cooking which was another thing that was very special about her. She was a gourmet cook. I finally saved enough money to move out but I’ll never forget the times we had there. It was also there that I learned the very sad truth about this very special woman. She was an alcoholic. I don’t think this needs to go without mention because alcoholism is a disease that runs in our family. Her biological father was an alcoholic. I don’t need to explain her, I just love her. Alcoholism isn’t something to be ashamed of and I don’t want to treat it as such. It got the best of her. Beautiful, blessed, big-hearted, bright, fanciful, glamorous, loving Barbara.
I mention my beautiful aunt Barbara’s disease because it is probably what bonded us the most in the last few years of her life. Because of her addiction she was very vulnerable and was taken advantage of multiple times because of her big and generous heart. It became my job, thanks to Nicole’s and my mother’s great concern, to protect her and rescue her in those stressful days. (They were living out of town and I lived close by.) And our family, especially my mother, Nicole, my husband and myself all bonded together to get her help. Some of my fondest memories are actually through the struggles that we had, she and I together. As we would go to doctors and other appointments (several) together so that I could help with the paperwork, we would sit together and joke around and just be silly. She couldn’t fill out the paperwork but she still had her sense of humor! She still had that feistiness! And she was still glamorous! She was still beautiful! Always in my eyes. Always.
haasboss 