My sister called me last night, soon after I arrived home. When her number showed up on my caller ID I knew it was something unpleasant. NOT that she is unpleasant, we just communicate via chat, not phone calls unless there is a a 'situation'.

She was calling with the news that our aunt; our dad's sister Virginia had passed away a few minutes before. I must say that I was stunned. She had been ill, but for some strange reason; I think I felt she would live forever. I think because she had always been there.
She was my Daddy's older sister, about 12 years old to his 4 years old when their mother died from pneumonia. Daddy always said that she stepped in and raised him, and that even when their father remarried, he looked to his sister 'Shinny" as his mother figure.
She lived across the street from our family home. In my mind I think since the beginning of time. Sure; my parents had shared stories of the houses in the neighborhood being built and so on, but it was a vague faraway notion, not something I ever thought about. She was just there.

I have a few stories and images in my mind and heart about her, but none that really would matter in the telling. I think I've long held her as the picture of a Christian woman, solid in her belief and her faith, holding to her values even when others didn't understand and at times criticized her for them. She to me was a 'different' kind of woman than the mother I lived with. Where mine was dramatic and at times overbearing; she, Virginia, always seemed (to me at least) to be the calm of an early morning, peaceful under almost any situation. I'm sure there are things that I don't know, but I do know that she was my Daddy's beloved sister, his mother figure in life and that they shared the genetics of both parents. Daddy when not giving in to his drinking problem was one of the most calm and peaceful people you could ever meet. I believe that his 'Shinny' must have been very much like that; it is all I ever witnessed from her.

She was the last living child of her mother, my grandmother. Of the total (11) she claimed as siblings (including whole sisters/brothers, step-sister/brothers and half siblings) she was the last living child of Dolphus and MarthaAnn Elizabeth Murray. There are two half brothers of that original eleven left.

I feel a unique connection to my grandmother I never knew and think about her and her life often. When my dad died in 1997 my second thought after hearing the news was that at long last he was reunited with his mom that he had not seen in 71 years. I thought similar thoughts about Shinny last night. Home with her mom and dad, her brothers and sisters who have gone ahead and with her husband...... home with her beloved Lord.