Aunt Jean

Jean used to be a popular name, so I had two aunts Jean and an aunt Jeannie.  One of them, born Sydney Jean Halsey, from Georgia, wife of my uncle Billy, would have been 72 today.

My interaction with her over the years was relatively fleeting, for the most part.  I have a vivid memory of seeing her at my grandmother’s house, after the family moved back from Alaska, where my uncle was stationed for a time.  I remembered her being fairly thin, but now she had ballooned up, and she said it was because of the short days in Alaska.

I stayed at their house a couple times as a kid.  It’s easy walking distance from where I live now.  One of those times, she was in St. Lukes Hospital in Middleboro, same place I was born, now vacant, for gallbladder surgery.

I finally got to know her better when we both went to Galveston for my cousin Sandy’s wedding to her first husband.  We were the only family members to go.  My uncle drowned in the seventies, so I nervously stood in for him to give Sandy away.  Between generally seeing a lot of her during her visit there because, hello, it was her daughter’s wedding, driving her around some, and driving her to the airport, we packed most of a lifetime’s interaction with each other into a matter of days.  I drove her to the airport when she had to leave, which was an adventure in being barely in time due to traffic.  Recently I was trying to figure out why I went to New Orleans a day after my cousin, her husband, and some of his family.  It made no sense, until I wrote this and remembered driving Jean to the Houston airport.

I didn’t see much of her during her remaining years after that.  She died several years ago, sadly but not so unexpectedly.  May she rest in peace.

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