Happy Birthday, Dear Mouse

Yesterday was my aunt's 78th birthday.  My mother's eldest sister, she is also my godmother.  Growing up as I did in the far corners of the globe, distant from all family, it was to my grandmother's house (in the same town as this aunt's) that my mother and brother and I repaired every summer during the school break, while Dad was working wherever we were living at the time.  Because of this, I have always been very close to my aunt and her husband and two sons.  My cousins are nine and seven years older than I, a big gap at that time, but nothing now.  For reasons I've forgotten, probably relating to her small stature and quiet speech, they always called their mother "Mouse," making her "Aunt Mouse" to me.

Small and quiet she may be, but this is not a woman to mess with...she has a core of steel and an independent spirit that has served her well through the years.  After putting herself through nursing school, she joined the Air Force (this was way back when the best careers available to women were nursing and teaching.)  The Air Force sent her to a base in Mountain Home, Idaho, where she met the man who would eventually become my uncle, an Air Force dentist with a hard head and good taste in women.  Eventually both left the service, but my aunt continued to work as a surgical nurse until only a few years ago.

My grandmother worked a great deal while Mom was growing up.  Aunt Mouse, who is ten years older than Mom, had a lot to do with raising her.  The two are so alike that they finish each other's sentences and unwittingly buy the same articles of clothing in different states! The third sister and Mom are much more alike physically, but Mom and Aunt Mouse are personality clones.  It is much like having two (and sometimes three) mothers, which in this case is a good thing.  Although possibly not quite so much for Himself, who back in September had the equivalent of three mothers-in-law staying in his house all at once!

Love you, Mousie...