My aunt died yesterday. She was quite a woman. She was the first adult whom I remember teasing me. Except she had this deadpan delivery before cracking into the hugest grin so I was never sure if she was scolding or teasing. Because she wasn't afraid to scold, either! With Aunt Janet you always knew exactly where you stood. She didn't play games. When I was about 10 years old and I was told to plant the flowers she'd bought for my grandma's flower bed but I just somehow didn't get around to it--she told me what she thought about that! And I never "forgot" another chore for grandma again.

She was a nurse and she had that way of giving you the once over so you knew you had nothing to hide. She was the person we called with questions (it seems every serious illness ended with my mother saying, "I'm going to call Janet.") You knew she'd seen it all before. She once told me (while prodding my swollen ankles when I was 38 weeks into my last pregnancy) that because she'd worked in a small, country hospital she'd delivered about half the babies in the area. The doctor's purposely assigned her to the night shift and then they'd stay home until it was too late for them to bother to drive in when there was a night delivery.

She was a self-made woman. She'd gotten pregnant at 16 but graduated high school at 17 before marrying my uncle. Soon after that first baby she had twin baby boys who were each over 7 lbs. She showed me once how she couldn't even reach dishes in the sink to wash them because she couldn't reach past her own belly because the babies were so big (to which my modern, feminist self wondered why she was doing dishes at all at that point). She became a talented seamstress in part because they were so poor she needed to make their own clothes. I never heard how or when she got her nursing degree. No one seems to remember that part of her story. I suspect she quietly slogged through night classes without a fuss for many years.

She was a tiny little woman who defined the word spry. She ate healthily and exercised often. She was a bright spot at every family reunion. The word would go around the room, "Janet is here!" when she arrived. Her sharp wit and strong opinions were starkly at odds with the family she married into. I often wondered how my other aunts, the epitome of quiet and mousy, all got along so well with her. I think it's because she genuinely loved and cared for them all. Everyone has a story of the time Janet showed up on their door and simply did what needed doing.

My uncle died when his three kids were 18 and 21. He had cancer and suffered terribly before dying at age 39. She nursed him every minute.

Years later when my dad died, at age 45, when his four kids were 13, 14, 18 and 19, I remember staring into my cousins' eyes and seeing the deep comprehension, and compassion, there. Janet held my mother up. Literally. I remember her tiny, but strong, arms holding my mother as she guided her up the steps to her house where we stayed in between sessions at the funeral home. (So many people knew my father we did three days of visitation and her house was in town and near the funeral home whereas our farm was a drive out of town.)

This week we got emails from my cousin updating us on Janet's last days. She is a nurse, like her mother, and told us about the pain medication she was given by the hospice staff to swab on the inside of her cheek as needed. She said Janet's last moments were peaceful. It is some comfort that, at age 82, after a long life caring for others her final moments were attended by family and without pain. But she will be missed. Dearly.