Message that I sent to the Relatively Healys list:
After several days of declining health, Aunt Eileen, 94, died last night about midnight. (Aug. 21). The nursing home contacted [my sister] Debbie and she drove over and picked up Aunt Helen, who just turned 93.
As Helen said a few minutes ago when I called, there are at least six times when she thought when she said good-bye to her sister, that Eileen would be gone by the next morning, but she’d still be there. “I’m a tough old bird,” Eileen told Helen. She’s told me that, too, and probably Tim, with whom she felt she had a special relationship. I have loved Aunt Eileen for many years and always been deeply appreciative that she has always been on my side.
Eileen insisted that she did not want a funeral or a memorial service. As you know, we were raised Unitarian and so her tradition is more secular. She also was painfully shy. We may get together when the urn is buried at the gravesite near the Healy plot at the Worland cemetery. The story has been waiting for several years, since Uncle Jim died. The funeral home has kept his ashes and hers will be added to the urn for burial.
Dick Bonine (Helen’s son) is driving down tomorrow from Montana to help pack up Eileen’s room. DJ (Mike’s oldest son) is in Worland right now having a vacation before he leaves for his 2nd year of an MBA at Claremont University. He and Mike and Greg can help, too. Kay (Helen’s oldest) has offered to come, but Helen would prefer for her to wait for awhile, since Kay has just arrived back in Oklahoma after wintering in Arizona
I am flying to Worland on Aug. 31 for my 50th high school reunion, and Tim told Helen that he plans to be in Worland around Sept. 6, so perhaps we can find a way for some of Eileen’s nieces and nephews to say good-bye. She and Jim had no children.
Eileen moved into the Worland Nursing Home to keep Jim company a long time ago – 12 years? 14 years? She was a mainstay for my mother and for Mike’s wife, Jean, when they moved to the nursing home. She lived next door to Mother and two rooms from Jean.
I have felt very sad that Eileen was so confined for these last years, but I also feel enormous gratitude over how loved she felt in these last years. The nurses and aides have petted her and she blossomed. Who knew that after the terrible memories of having to go to an orphanage and being “too old to be adopted” — that she would end up dying in an institution surrounded by people who cared. Including her sister, who has always been with her, and one of her nieces. In fact, Aunt Eileen Healy Horn had two families — she and Aunt Helen Healy Bonine are close with their blood brother and sister — and she was loved by the family that adopted her.
By the way, I was talking with PIV a couple of days ago. He didn’t know that Aunt Helen was named after Helen Healy Lynch, the sister of our grandfathers (PII and Alex 1)
94 years old! That’s a long life!