Dear Aunt Dorie

In memoriam: for a sweet and steadfast soul

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 19, 2026, I got to sit alone beside my sleeping aunt, holding her warm old hand in mine as her life in this world ebbed serenely to its close. I wasn’t there at the moment her soul finally untethered, releasing from her body into the joy of longed-for reunions. But when I left her hospital room a scant ninety minutes earlier I could feel, in her stillness, that she was already done here. It had been a while since she’d responded to my voice speaking into her ear. A while since she’d hummed quiet pleasure when I ran my fingers through her hair. A while since she’d tightened her fingers around mine in reply to a soft squeeze. I don’t know if she was aware of the music filling the room from the CD player by her bed—Handel’s Water Music, Mozart’s symphonies 29, 35, and 40—but classical music had ever been in the background of her days at home and so it seemed a fitting sendoff to her new one. A way to communicate to her departing soul that she had been loved, and seen.

For obvious reasons, I won’t go into details of Aunt Dorie’s particular health issues. Suffice it to say that when she headed to the hospital three and a half weeks earlier the hope was that she would be returning home in the near future, feeling better, and that life would go on for her with more energy and less worry. At this point I know she’d cheerfully assert that hope was fulfilled more perfectly than she’d anticipated: she is most certainly home and life is going on with her feeling profoundly better, filled with energy, and entirely free of worries.

I’m genuinely happy for her. And I’ll miss our time together.

Through these last couple months, I and another local niece became her personal care providers. Though at 92 she was on her feet and mostly able to get herself around her small apartment, there were many aspects of daily living for which she needed assistance. For me, the hours spent with her turned out to bring unexpected gifts. Despite having known her for the better part of my six decades, and being clear on the general contours of her life, I’d never spent sustained time with her. And so our many conversations were illuminating, often filled with recollections of her childhood adventures and trials having been one of nine children growing up during the Depression and war years on a Canadian farm with no indoor plumbing. Indeed, those stories testified to the core of the woman she became: devout, unassuming and family-focused.

One tale in particular stayed with me, partly because of its hair-raising nature but also because it reveals so clearly two early qualities of her character that endured and magnified throughout her life.

Near their house on the farm was a woods, and beyond it, a spring where watercress and marsh marigolds grew. Also in that vicinity of water was a patch of quicksand in which one of their farm horses had tragically drowned.

On a spring day when she was seven or eight, little Dorie went for a walk by herself through the woods. Catching sight of the flowers growing near the spring, she had a pleasing idea and headed over to pick them, one by one, gathering them into a bouquet for her mother. The ground in the area was soft and mushy, with an overgrowth of vines that, she later reflected, may have hidden the logs she knew had been placed as a warning border by the danger zone. Whatever the case, she saw no logs. She only knew that one moment she was picking flowers in happy anticipation of her mother’s smile, and the next she was waist-deep in quicksand, stranded, alone, and terrified.

But those vines, for all they might have played a major role in causing her predicament, turned out to provide her escape. For with remarkable presence of mind, young Dorie overcame her panicked visions of the drowned horse and instead grabbed some vines within reach. She tugged and felt them hold. Then slowly she pulled herself forward, using the vines for leverage, until she could crawl onto solid ground. Wet and bouquet-less, and missing a shoe, she ran home to her mother. A gift in itself.

Aunt Dorie’s thoughtful consideration for others and her determined strength of will are what shine through in this story of a young girl on a quest to show her love and meeting necessity by pulling herself—literally—out of dire straits. These qualities emerged early and deepened, defining her life as a daughter, wife, mother, as a nurse, friend, grandmother. And aunt. She made a literal career out of helping the sick, injured, and infirm, and refused to let her life’s disappointments rattle her faith, or its heartbreaks erode her trust in God and her determination to live His truth to her best understanding. She was a woman of inspiring and unshakeable conviction.

And quiet good humor. Even lying in a hospital bed at 92, hard of hearing, coping with serious discomfort and dissipating energy, she showed a remarkable capacity not only to catch wisecracks and ironic asides but to respond with a predictable chuckle. Her enjoyment of wry humor went a long way, I suspect, to holding onto her humble perspective amidst her life’s many storms.

For by any normal measure, the woman had much to complain about, especially in her final few weeks being hospitalized. And she did indulge. On brief occasions. But more often than not, even with her life upside down and stuck in bed at the mercy of the medical system, when asked by anyone how she was feeling, be it nurse, doctor, or visitor, her reply would be a small shrug and mild, “Oh, I’m doing okay.” Unto the end, Dorie was not a make-waves kind of gal; assimilating to whatever the day brought her, whether wanted or not, was her superpower.

One gift of being dear Aunt Dorie’s care provider was the unexpected opportunity to get to know her. To better see and appreciate what she brought to this world. Another gift was being at her side as she journeyed her way out of it.

Indeed, bearing witness to her long, earnest life winding gently down felt like a bestowal of Providence, a sacred blessing. To her, one of a loving presence; to me, one of precious, lasting impressions . . .

. . . her quietening body, softly respiring . . . the calm and lightness of the air around her, textured with the gossamer weight of a myriad memories, a whole living tapestry of hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, hurts and healings all come and gone, now falling away . . . the unspoken pull of her longing, pure anticipation . . . the ebbing of her energy, incremental yet steady, outward, a silent sliding away towards Light, towards the promise of Love, and reunion. An eternity of peace.

Dear Aunt Dorie departed this world as she had lived in it: determined, unobtrusive, and trusting that her direction of travel would take her home.

One final gift of Providence I’m pleased to note is that when her cherished husband died sixteen months ago, I volunteered to help Aunt Dorie choose the music for his service. Happily, that information was still on my phone, in a text exchange with the organist, and so the selections for her own service—which will be celebrated later today—were readily established and undeniably to her liking. Perhaps sweetest of all is that one hymn we’ll be singing she chose for her personal attachment to it. She told me it came to her mind often, and in troubled times it always steadied her. I believe that’s because it was God speaking into her humble, golden heart, offering His comfort, His encouragement, His assurance: I see you, Dorie. You’re well on your way. Keep coming. I’m right beside you.

Father, I come to Thee,
Father, O show to me
mercy and love.
Unworthy I have been;
O make me pure within;
lead me above.

Trusting Thy power to win
my life from every sin,
Father, I come.
Save me from every ill;
help me to do Thy will;
so lead me home.

Father, I rest in Thee,
Thine may I ever be, 
in age or youth.
Through all the weary day, 
mine be the upward way,
led by Thy Truth.