My Aunt Dee

There is a sweet lady in California, where I was raised, who is stuck in a bed and is slowly dying.  She is a good Christian woman that has loved so many people.  She is a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and Godmother to my mother along with being her aunt.
When I was a hurt, angry, and confused teenager she showed me Jesus, and she is a person I am so glad I've known.  After my grandmother's death, she was the person that helped pull me through.  I don't think that was what she was trying to do.  She was just loving me as she does and did everyone.  She has six children who live in different parts of the country, and more grandchildren and great grandchildren than I can easily count.  Right now they are all wanting to visit her, and even as these are her last days and weeks she joyfully welcomes everyone, my mother tells me when I call and ask how things are going.
Though she is in pain, and knows these are her last times, she is at peace because she knows who she is and the promises of her savior.  She trusts those promises.  She always has.  Even though she did not have the perfect life, and often had hardships that she did not deserve, she has remained peaceful, kind, and loving for as long as I have had the priviledge to know her.
Now it is our chance, the ones she has loved, to give back a little of the kindness she poured upon us.  For those nearby to her, it is a chance to spend time helping her be as comfortable as she can be, and being there with her. For those like me that are two thousand plus miles away, and don't have the ability to be near, it means praying for Jesus to take her in his arms and give his love to her as she has always done for others. She is in our thoughts and prayers constantly, not just in the evening or morning, but all day.  I tend to thank God again and again for the years she gave me sight to see a better path than I was on, and how I learned to love those around me, whether they were doing wonderful or terrible.  Maybe it was even her example that convinced me we must love even the unlovable, and we must forgive even the unforgivable.  I don't know, because I was to busy soaking up all she gave.  My prayer now is just to live up to her legacy, and continued comfort for her.
I do not want to think of not seeing her again this side of heaven, but that is reality.  I know when the time comes Jesus will personally come and walk her home, and when that happens I will be in tears because I will miss her deeply, but I will also have the assurance that she is where she has always longed to be.  She evidenced that by the way she lived, and the way she is not afraid to die.
 For my readers that do not know me personally, I thought you should know a little about my Aunt Dee.  For those who know my family, you all know what I write about Aunt Dee does not do her enough justice.   There are not words enough for that.  And to Aunt Dee--  You will always be treasured.  I love you.