A TRIBUTE TO AUNT BERNIE

What a fine lady she was...I was truly blessed to have met her. She was known in our family as the "Fun Purple Lady" as this was her favorite color. She put together gift bags for one of my sons when he was little and in it were all sorts of nick knacks, bows, pens, etc and all were the color purple!

Bernie was our close friend Steve's aunt. 

She was a real character. She loved people and she decided early on that she wanted to live in an assisted living environment that allowed her to live independently in her own apartment but also gave her a community of friends and the social life that she loved. 

Here she is with Steve and Sue's lab Shadow. 

Bernie kept a diary and some of her entries are very funny. She wore a wig and always put on make up. She modified her clothes by adding large pockets to her tops so that she could have any necessaries on hand. She wore bright colorful outfits and described each one in her daily entry. She spent a lot of time in the home's lobby meeting and greeting people and visiting with the local home's pet. She would have meals with some of her favorite "inmates" as she referred to them...hilarious....!

Bernie was also very frugal. She loved to make pins out of gift bows, decorative butterflies, anything that would strike her fancy. 

Now look at how creative and fun her pins are:

I wanted to show you some of the individual pins and what the back of them looked like...

Don't they make you smile???

I grabbed a red felt rose pin and attached it to the chain on my necklace...love it!

Sadly Bernie suffered a stroke earlier in November and seemed to be recovering well when she suffered another stroke. This time, sweet, delightful Bernie was not able to recover and passed away peacefully...she was 94 years old.

Sue had these pins with her when she and Steve came over for Thanksgiving and I just had to dedicate a blog to this fine lady.

By giving so much and living her life to the fullest she left us with great memories and remains an inspiration to us all.

Thanks for visiting and hope you enjoyed this post,

Hugs

Mandy

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