Two Major Events in Our Lives

The first one is a great happy one! Saturday the 7th Shelly and Adam welcomed their new little boy into the world! I got to be there for the birth and it was WONDERFUL!!! His name is Jackson Adam Hollingshead. His Papa Jack is pretty darned proud of the name. They call him Little Jack. :) So, he is his grandpa's namesake and was born on his great grandpa's birthday. The tradition in Adam's family is to give the boys their dad's name for a middle name. So this little guy is already steeped in tradition - he's so Catholic already!

Shelly and Little Jack are doing fine. Ellie, who will be 3 yrs old on Thursday, is enjoying the responsibility of being the big sister. She is an absolute delight to be with and being grandparents is the best job in the world!!!!!!!!!!!

The other news is not as happy. Last Wednesday eve my Aunt Evie was sitting at the kitchen table with my Uncle Kenny. She just laid her head down on her arm on the table and was gone. It was a shock and left my uncle and cousins with mixed feelings. She had been suffering from Alzheimers and it had been very hard for my uncle. Her personality had gotten so argumentative and awful that it was all he could do to get through the day with her.

With her passing it feels to me like the end of an era. She is the last of the Kopetzky kids - my mom's family. (There were 8 of them) Aunt Evie was the kind of person that lit up a room when she walked in. She was loud and boisterous and loving and had a laugh like no other. When I was growing up we spent a lot of time with them. A few times we lived with them when mom and dad were having a hard time. The first time I lived with them - they tell me - I was three days old. Mom had to go back into the hospital with kidney problems and my aunt and uncle kept me and both said that I spent the whole three days crying. What a joy I must have been!

Our family spent many, many happy Sundays with them - and on one occassion we stayed with them when my mom packed us all up and we left my dad. I remember Aunt Evie giving us kids a talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. For the life of me, I had no clue what she was talking about. I couldn't see how trees and forests had anything to do with the situation.

In my little kid mind I thought they were rich because they had a color t.v. They lived for some years in an old convent in Littleton, CO and we loved it because we played hotel with all the rooms upstairs. My youngest cousin in that family, Denise, was adopted. I had never heard of such a thing, and when they let us peek into the bassinet I almost expected to see some kind of alien.

These last days have been full of memories and lip biting. And then I remember Little Jack's birth and it all comes full circle.

I will miss Aunt Evie, I am sad at the realization that an era of my life is closed, and I am very much in love with Little Jack.