Aunt Vi was right

{Photo of Greg and I in Paris, France 3/09}

I don't usually like to post personal items here on this blog- I actually have a few projects that I created recently that I wanted to post tonight. However, my husband took the car and with it our digital camera in the backseat- so the pics of my latest creations will have to wait. Instead, I turn to a more personal topic.  The love of my life.  

But first, a story.

My Aunt Vi was in her mid 90's when she came to live with our family.  She was an interesting character.  Raised in Jamaica, she came as an immigrant to the States to be a nurse.   She loved to read and would give me one book from her collection to keep every time I came to visit.  I can remember climbing the creaky stairs to her room to pick one out.  Books lined the shelves from floor to celling.  How I wish that I had a picture of that room stacked with books, as my memory from age ten doesn't do it justice anymore.  No one was ever allowed in her room, and I know everyone thought it was because she was so private.  I  knew better, she was just messy.  

Auntie, as we liked to call her, was quite the recluse and I think if she had things her way, she would have lived her entire life in her little house that my Uncle Charlie built for her, reading her books and petting her cats. Unfortunately, one day while collecting money for charity work, she slipped and broke her hip.  She came to live with us shortly after. 

So, Auntie wasn't much for company.  She would tap her hands nervously whenever you approached.  Most people thought she didn't like them.  I knew better, she was painfully shy.  There was however,  one person's company she longed for.  I can still remember hearing her whisper, "Goodnight Charlie" and blow a kiss before she would go to sleep.  I never met Uncle Charlie, he had passed many years before I arrived in this world.  I can remember his picture, always poised next to Auntie's bed.  She would sit in her rocker and stare at his photo when no one was looking, distant memories dancing in her eyes.  Near the end of her life she would talk about going to heaven to see Jesus and Charlie with this far away look of... longing. 

Charlie was the love of her life.  She told me stories of how she met him, as a young nurse, stories of their great romance. He was the captain of a Navy ship and he would fake sickness so he could go and "visit the nurse".  They had so many adventures together.  From jumping Navy ships at sea in the dead of night so they could swim out to see each other to hiding their marriage from the Navy- theirs was an epic romance.   A few months before her passing, I came to her and asked a question that I had been wondering the answer to for years.  

I asked her, "Auntie, how do you know that you've really met the one?" She smiled at me and patted my hands.  "Dear, you just know." 

"Auuuunnntie!" I whined. "Come on now!  You gotta give me more than that!" 

"No dear, that's it.  You just know." 

I can remember prodding her and probing her- but she left it at that.  No magic formulas, no three steps to knowing.  You just know. That's it.  

I write all of this tonight because it was seven years ago (yesterday) that I just knew.   I could tell you the place I stood, the exact moment, the feeling of surety.  I knew that I was to marry Greg Baca, and I am so glad that I did. 

Tonight, my wish for those of you who do not know, who are struggling with questions, and are hoping for clarity; is that one day, you too would just know.  I know that it seems trite, like a cliche wrapped up in platitude.  But I can tell you, after almost six years of marriage to my wonderful husband, and with the same confidence as my Great Aunt, "When you know... you just know."