Lost a family member....

My mother's first cousin, Elsie, passed away on Friday.  She would have been 97 this year.  Until February, she lived in her own apartment, but we could see that she was becoming very frail.  A fall sent her to the hospital, then into a nursing home.  She died in her sleep.  She and her husband Bill were the only members of my mother's family that we saw 
regularly, and they were the only adults that I was allowed to call by just their first names.  They spent weekends with us on the boat, and attended all my dance recitals, birthdays, Christmases etc.  When my father died, my mother and Elsie moved into the same apartment building, living next door to each other.  I think they got along better later in life, as there had always been a bit of rivalry between them as children and later as adults.  Elsie and Bill had no children, but enjoyed our family, as well as their nieces and nephews.  The second picture has Elsie on the left, me in the middle and my mother, Doris on the right.   I know she will be sorely missed.