Vengeance Is Mine

"Vengeance is mine...saith the Lord."  Romans 12:19

I don't get all religious and stuff here, and I'm not about to with this post.  However, the quote brings me right to the the heart of what I want to say.

One of The Mother's aunts was possibly my favorite aunt of all time.  The woman was the oldest of all of her siblings and her daughter was older than The Mother by 10 years or more.  The Aunt was quite a rebel in her day:  She was a flapper in the 20s and was the first (?) in the family to ever be divorced.  She married a second time and outlived him by so many years, that I don't ever remember meeting the man.  She lived most of her life in Detroit and 'came home' after she retired.  She lived with her bachelor brother in the family home and stayed there after he died.  With failing health, she wound up back in Detroit with her daughter for her last days.  I loved the woman like a grandmother.

The biggest thing I remember about my aunt was her coming to The Family home on Social Security payday.  She would stay the night and go and do all of her banking business the following day.  She always stayed with me in my bedroom, which had a small bed/cot for her to sleep in.  School days were very hard for me when she spent the night, as the woman snored like a truck driver.  I don't know if I ever got more than a couple of hours of sleep whenever she stayed the night.  I'm not sure I ever had been as angry in my young life as I would be whenever she came down to the kitchen in the morning and complained about 'not sleeping a wink all night.'  Whenever she said that, I was as close to decking her--or any of my aunts/uncles--as ever.  I'm sure I slept through most of the school day in these situations.  Fun memories.  ;)

My aunt had one big 'flaw'--she was an alcoholic.  While living with her daughter in Detroit--both before and after her retirement--I believe she was dry, or mostly, anyway.  Her being drunk would NOT have gone well with her daughter and her husband--they were EXTREMELY religious and wouldn't have stood for it.  However, when she moved in with her brother--who also was an alcoholic--the booze was back in her life big time.  She drank a lot before her health turned and she moved back downstate.  It was a big disappointment to me and it saddened me to no end--but you can't stop drinking FOR someone else, they have to do it on their own.  She just wanted to live her life in an alcoholic fog as her days came to their close.  Very sad.

Visiting with my aunt was a great deal of fun.  (NOT counting the times she was drunk, of course.)  She had led a fascinating life which was awesome AND funny.  We always had a good time talking about the things that happened in the family over the years--and we usually wound up laughing until we cried.  She had done some unbelievably ridiculous things in her day and they always brought us to our knees, clutching our stomachs while laughing, whenever she regaled us with her stories.  I still miss her today--some 30 years after she died.

Okay, I didn't mean for this post to be so rambling or so serious.  My entire point was to show how I am an example of our Lord's 'vengeance.'  One thing that my aunt did was complain about her knees--ALL. OF. THE. TIME.  They ALWAYS hurt her and she groaned and moaned about them constantly.  She NEVER went to see a doctor about them, of course, so we (read that as The Mother and me), never QUITE believed her.  We would talk about how she couldn't possibly be as bad off as she 'pretended' and we would scoff at her, a lot.  We ALWAYS would say that we'd probably pay for our laughing at her some day, but then we would laugh THAT off, too.  Boy, have I learned my lesson.  I find myself having bad knees that get worse every year.  Of course, I try to ignore the problem and say it all is age or weight related--and I, too, have not said a word to any of my doctors.  I know it won't make much of a difference, as I am just getting pay-back for the way I used to view my aunt.  :D


***I know I will have to address my knees one of these days--and I very much may need replacement surgery sometime down the road.  Right now, I'm determined to 'help' myself by losing weight first and seeing how I do.  Also, I'm not too sure that part of my problem isn't arthritis--having psoriasis, I am at risk for having psoriatic arthritis and THAT I will discuss with my dermatologist when I see her next week.  But, I'm pretty much sure it is my destiny to have 'bad knees.'  :)