Helen, it hurts to read that account of what your aunt was subjected to, and apparently the news of her health blocked from people who might have made her life more comfortable. Let me tell you a story that I am reminded of when reading that.

In ~ 1994 I drove east to attend a family estate sale in Pennsylvania, at the home of the three great aunts I got to meet in the years after their sister, my grandmother, (who I never met) passed away. I'd gotten to know them via letters in the late 1960s, and by 1975 was able to meet them in person when taking a train trip during my university holiday break. Later I spent several years living in the east and visited them at their summer home (near Williamsport) and they were lovely and interesting. The last survivor was in a nursing home at the time of the sale, dementia in full force, but she remembered me (thought I was my father's wife, oops). I was travelling with my youngest, an 18-month toddler who was still nursing and it was an adventure.

When I got to the nursing home it was a sunny morning and she was with others in a large glassed conservatory with chairs lining the windows. We visited for more than an hour, but the interesting thing was that my son attracted so much attention. Everyone wanted to say hello, and he ended up running around the room laughing, just out of reach of everyone seated in those chairs—they would reach out to touch his hair or brush his sleeve as he giggled and ran and they laughed back.

Our visit to my great aunt Thelma brightened the lives of a couple of dozen strangers to us. I'm sure she didn't remember my visit much after that, or that I had my son with me, but I have a memory of a whole bunch of people charmed by a little boy in a sunny room. And I offer this as a hope that your aunt had some days like that also. It takes a village, and if you weren't able to be there, I hope others were.

XOXO