heaps of love ...

Clazina, known as Nita, was the oldest of two daughters in a line-up of eight children born to Dutch immigrants--which, if you can do simple math, means there were six brothers. I should say, eight kids that lived into adulthood. Her little sister came way at the end of the lineup--what some families call the "caboose."  My great-aunt Nita was a favorite of mine. She was a strong woman, and she never married. Aunt Nita was the executive assistant (as we would call it today) for her lawyer brother, and had the time to involve herself in many peoples' lives––including her nieces and nephews and their children––as well as to work in the family mission and, as the family matriarch, kept track of everyone in the large extended family.

I remember visiting my aunt when she lived with my great grandmother, taking care of her mother in her later years. But I remember her most when we would visit her in her one room abode tucked inside a big Dutch retirement home. I can still hear her resonant voice. And remember her long hair (that reached below her waist) which she wore in a bun. When she eventually, in her upper nineties, moved to the care center, they cut off her hair. She was disgruntled. In fact, the last visit I had with her she complained about it. When we would take our little boys to visit, she always had a some candy stashed away for them to eat. Her desk was piled high with letters ... and she answered every one. One time she showed me the little record book she kept of the letters she wrote. Well over 1000 a year.  We'd feel very special to see our photo on her mirror. (I think the missionary great-nieces were the ones to make the mirror post.)

 

But most of all I remember Aunt Nita's notes to me. After I got married, each year she would send us an anniversary card, with a note always included. She signed it as she had all the letters she wrote me in my childhood, "Heaps of love and daily prayers ..."  I did not take lightly her words, and indeed knew that she meant what she said.  Her prayers were a true gift to us, something we counted on in life.

When she went to Glory a few years ago, at age 103, I felt we had lost something more than just my Aunt Nita. But, I am left with a legacy, a memory, and a model.