Aunt Cissy - more memories

So, last night while laying down, I started thinking more about my aunt Cissy. More memories came to me, things, smells, just memories.

The thing that hit me first while laying there was - She LOVED Roy Orbison - ooby dooby was a favorite song. She told me about this once about 26 years ago, that she just loved Roy...    That's why I posted the video right before this..

Cissy loved to use a lot of cumin when she cooked - when I make taco meat, I always think of her when I put in the cumin. I can see myself sitting in her kitchen at the table while she prepared dinner with my mom - Tacos were always a big favorite.

Cissy saved her change from shopping to finance her garage sale days... every time she broke a bill to pay for groceries, the change went in her change purse, to be used for garage sales...


She collected dogs.. glass, ceramic, wooden, whatever, she had 100s of dog figurines, I have most of them now.

She also liked to do paint by numbers..

Her mother (my great granny) loved to sew, crochet, stitch, but not Cissy - she just never got into that.. She was a good daughter to her parents, she loved her brother "Jamie" (My grandpa Jimmy) very much, and was so heartbroken when he died in 1972, (he was not very old - maybe 53?)

Cissy and Cleon used to drink.. a lot. They were regulars at bars in Saticoy,  I remember being a little kid going into the bar with them, We (My sister Laurie and I) would play shuffleboard.. I remember the sawdust, the beer smell, and all the people that were just so nice to us, because we came with Cissy and Biggen'  (Cleon was called Biggen')  My aunt quit drinking by her 60s I think - Cleon would still, and after retirement he would go to the bars when they opened up, drink, come home at 2 pm, cissy would fix him "dinner" and he went to bed... that went on for years and years. Cissy took such good care of him, and in her final years he took care of her.

She and my uncle took my older sister Laurie and I on a road trip to California in 1974 - our parents came out later and we went back with them. But the road trip was so much fun. I got squash blossom necklace, pig tail pendants, a beaded Indian headband, and an Indian doll that trip..  My uncle Cleon said I was really getting into my heritage.  I am sure the items we got were not Choctaw Indian, as they are native to Oklahoma, I am thinking probably more Navajo, but I didn't care.. and neither did Cissy and Cleon.

I regret only being able to talk to her on the phone for the past 5 years, I wish I had gone to visit her. The last time I saw her in person was 2001. She was still the same as she had been my entire life.. a little older, and slower moving, and a lot more "gray haired", but still my Cissy.

I am glad she is not suffering any longer, and is at peace, but she is loved, and missed more than words can ever convey.