So Long, Aunt E

My great Aunt Edith or "E" as we all called her passed away on September 13, 2009. She lived 93 wonderful and happy years! The following is the eulogy that myself as well as my two cousins Samantha and Stephanie wrote. I was able to read it aloud during the funeral service.

Hello. Thank you all for coming. My family and I greatly appreciate your love and support. Seeing you all here is a true testament of Aunt E's character. We are Aunt E's great nieces and she was our surrogate grandparent. Aunt E was troubled by the fact that our grandparents weren't here to see graduations, birthdays, wedding, births and family celebrations. However, we couldn't have been more blessed to have Aunt E in our lives and participate in our special events.
We want to share with you all of the life lessons that we have learned from her.
The first is the importance of family. Aunt E showed strong devotion and love to her family members. She was responsible for baby-sitting duties, which meant playing house, making cheese sandwiches, caring for our boo-boos, supplying and eating endless amounts of Tootsie Rolls, being a bug exterminator and taking us all to the pool only to become a "tree lady". She told us to always put family first and to trust in the Lord.
She taught us the value of friendship and to love our girlfriends and others unconditionally. The bond that she shared with Adelaide and the Go-Go girls taught us that true friendship can last a lifetime.
Aunt E also instilled with us the importance of education. She encouraged us to continue in our educational pursuits and she was proud of her education at Albright College.
We also learned from her the value of money. Aunt E lived through the Great Depression and encouraged us to not be wasteful. This included always cleaning our plates, saving just about everything and going to the Sunset Diner instead of Reading Country Club and still ordering a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.
Finally Aunt E shoed us what it looked like to be in love with your soul mate. Even though most of our lives were spent without Uncle Jesse, Aunt E's devotion to him never waivered and their love lasted a lifetime.
Aside from our life lessons that we learned, Aunt E had a tremendous amount of character. She had a keen sense of fashion--no one had a larger collection of clip-on earrings and necklaces to match as well as pins on every lapel. She had a tremendous support for the arts and would hum and tap to any music that she heard no matter what the genre. She had a vast amount of current events, politics and sports. Most of which was supported by Antique Roadshow, Larry King, 60 Minutes and Oprah. Aunt E never turned down a chance to dance with a fine lookin' man and drink and inch or two of wine. She was an avid storyteller and local historian. She always loved a great phone conversation and would spend hours on the phone. Aunt E was a proud, determined woman. Evidenced by the fact that she learned to drive in her 60's--in style no less. She cruised around town in a white mustang!
So with all of our life lessons and character modling, we feel truly blessed to have shared our lives with Aunt E. Because of her we will never let the sun set on our anger, we will swing and sway on the way to Cape May, always remember it had to be you, come grow old with me the best is yet to be. And we will always remember to don't worry, be happy.
Thank you Aunt E for all of your love. So long. We will miss you.

Katie, Samantha and Stephanie