Can You Die Of Loneliness?
As I mentioned in today’s earlier post, my Aunt Virginia died this morning, from as my cousin said, probably loneliness and a broken heart.
And that ‘loneliness’ I heard in her voice on the phone, is why we had planned to be up in Athens this past week. She had been begging us to come up and see her since late summer, but we held off hoping the flu situation would slack off. But when it didn’t we were planning to make the trip anyway.
But when she mentioned that we were coming up to see her to her doctor, he really chewed her out about it. And when she called to tell us, she was so upset she was crying.
And now we’re so sorry we canceled.
Virginia (I always called her Ninny because I couldn’t pronounce Virginia when I was little) was an amazing woman.
Yes, that’s me, with Virginia and my uncle Theo. This was the summer of 1949 when I was about 9 months old. See I did have hair once upon a time.
She was about 21 at the time.
How many women with a high-school diploma do you know that could start out as the secretary to a bank manager, and then end up many years later as President of the bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors, with a college degree?
And this wasn’t some podunk local Alabama bank, but First Federal Savings & Loan, a nation-wide banking system.
Ninny was just one of those people that everyone liked, or loved.
My cousin Marjorie said that Ninny was really upset Friday when she found out about Aunt Janis passing, but Marjorie finally got her calmed down and she seemed OK.
But when she went by Ninny’s house this morning to see her, there were police, an ambulance, and more telling, the coroner’s van outside her house.
I don’t know for certain, but I assume that the lady who looks in on her several times a day found her this morning. And no word yet on what happened.
Maybe just as my cousin said, “Loneliness and a Broken Heart.”
She was 92.
Much loved, and greatly missed. A remarkable women.
