Great Aunt Nora

Aunt Nora died last night at the nursing home. She was my mother's mother's sister. My favorite memories of aunt nora was going to visit her in new oxford when I was a boy. We would pile in the car on a Saturday or Sunday Afternoon and make the hour plus trip to visit her and Uncle Bob. I remember visiting them in the apartment above their hardware store. I also remember their house down the street when they moved. Aunt Nora would always make a big feast. She was a bit loud and flamboyant but that made Aunt Nora who she was.

I remember her for her gold costume jewelry, always dressing nice, spaghetti, and the after-thanksgiving turkey pizza.

My most memorable experirence happened at the apartment Nora & Bob lived in above the Hardware Store. When I was 4. Uncle Bob was drinking a beer and thinking it was a soda, I kept trying to pick it up and drink it. After the umpteenth time that i grabbed the beer can my father finally let me take a sip. It was awful, yucky horrible disgusting stuff. I can remember the smell and taste of that beer like it happened yesterday.

The weirdest thing Aunt Nora did that makes me wonder to this day was: When I was just 10 or 11 Aunt Nora got into Tarot card reading. As an adult I do not agree with this practice and think it leads down the path of the occult. However, when I was 10 I was curious as to what she did. She used her tarot cards to try to tell people's futures. I begged her to tell mine, against my parents wishes, and when they were not there i finally nagged her to use the tarot cards to tell my future.

She flipped over a bunch of cards and told me i was gonna take a big trip soon and that something was in the future dealing with my father . . . she then shuddered looked all serious, sad & disturbed grabbed all the cards picked them up and put them away and would not tell me what she saw. I always took away from that day a sense that she foretold something awful in my future regarding my father and she wouldn't tell me.

Ten years ago my father died in a tragic accident and we lost our farm in a bad wind storm the same week. Did Aunt Nora see this? Did she see something else? I will never know. I do believe that satan and his demons use such things to take control of people and situations. And while i do not believe that my aunt was possesed with demons I do think she did play with 'fire.' Soon after that incident she removed those cards from her life and never used them again.