How Lincoln, The New Yorker, and the Buffalo armories all relate

Last night I was thinking about my Aunt Kathleen. She's actually my grandfather's sister, so I don't know what that makes us, exactly, but she's always been Aunt Kathleen. There was nothing that specifically reminded me of her -- she just popped into my head.

This morning I learned that Aunt Kathleen had died last night.

She had been living in a nursing home in Buffalo, NY for the past few years. If she wasn't in her nineties, she was close, and various health problems had made her a frail woman unable to live on her own. My grandfather - her brother - died many years ago, and so my grandmother (Kathleen's sister-in-law) had been doing the best she could to take care of Kathleen; but my grandmother herself lives off social security, so needless to say there wasn't much Nana could do. Hence, the nursing home.

The only reason I mention all of this is to make the point that Kathleen was in the nursing home because of her physical and financial limitations. This was NOT a mentally frail woman. In fact, Kathleen is probably one of the most intelligent, quick-witted, insightful women I have ever had the pleasure to know, and she kept this distinction in her old age.

I visited Kathleen last Christmas when I was back in Buffalo. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years, and at first I was surprised/saddened to see what a tiny, hobbled person she had become. I didn't think she remembered me, either. But then we started talking, and in a forty-minute conversation she referenced the declining Buffalo economy, The New Yorker's recent position on the presidency of George W. Bush, the reasoning behind the numerous armories located in Buffalo (you could see a beautiful brick one outside her window), a book on Mary Tod Lincoln she read three years ago, a book on Benjamin Franklin, my sister's current employment, my old roommate from New York City (where I had lived for only one year four years ago), the difficulty in getting work even with a college degree, and then quoted at length the Lincoln-Douglas debates. No - not paraphrased - she QUOTED! - going back to correct herself once.

And all of this came in the natural flow of conversation and with logical segues. Everything she mentioned was relevent to our talk. And I'm sure there was more that I'm forgetting, but I'm not as smart as Kathleen so I didn't retain it all.

At first I thought this was just long-term memory, but The New Yorker, Benjamin Franklin, and my sister's employment were all pieces of information she had recently picked up. Kathleen may have been a little slower, but her brain was going full-speed the whole time.

And so anyways, Aunt Kathleen died last night. She had pneumonia. Her lungs were filling up. They also think she had a heart attack that they missed. She was on a respirator, and would probably always need to be on one. And that isn't the way she wanted to live. That's what she felt when she wrote her will, and that's what she felt recently. She was too pragmatic for a respirator. She told my Nana she wanted the machine turned off. And so, my father, Nana, and cousin spent the day with her after the machine was unplugged. It was difficult. But she was happy to see them, happy to have family with her. But the fluid kept building and building in her lungs. And so then at midnight she died.

Right around the time I was thinking about her. Now I'm an agnostic who flirts more and more with atheism. This coincidence is certainly giving me pause to think. It's not shaking me, but just acting as a sort of gentle reminder to keep an open mind.

So I'm keeping an open mind. And I'm going to allow that Kathleen was saying good-bye to me. I'd like to think she was saying it was good to see me at Christmas, because I certainly enjoyed seeing her.

So Kathleen -- say hi to Papa, Fossie, and Gracie for me. I hope I'm wrong and I get to see all of you some day.