Love Me....           by Cindy Dillon          CynthiaDillon@comcast.net      

The day started out like any other day. I was getting ready for work while listening to the Country Music station on the TV. While singing my little heart out I received a phone call that literally knocked me down. How I managed to listen to the horrible news that came over the line I am not sure. I just did. In the background I could hear Colin Raye singing, “Love me”

When I hung up I sat there listening to the song but not quite hearing the words. After a few phone calls I was dressed and out the door. Not on my way to work as I had expected, but on my way to a very exceptional person’s funeral, my Aunts. My Aunt Pam had died in what she would have thought to be a very uncomfortable place, the shower.

Trying to take my mind off the hour and a half drive I would have, I switched on the radio hoping to find just a bit of comfort even if it was just a bunch of stereo waves. Listening to the radio did not take a lot of concentration and although I was driving I found myself traveling back in time to all the summers I had spent with my Aunt.

One of the memories I had was of listening to the adults talk about how Aunt had lost another baby and how much it was tearing her apart. I remembered how I had promised my self that just as soon as I was old enough, I would give her the baby she wanted. How, did not matter, only the fact that she got her baby mattered to me. Remembering this, brought a fleeting smile to my face, what did I know of babies then? Remembering that even now makes me smile in a sad way. I would learn all about loving my own child not even two years after I had said my final goodbye to her.

Switching the station I was surprised to run across the song I had just heard at home; a song that instantly brought tears to my eyes. It was Colin Reye's Love Me, once again. Oh how fitting that song was at that moment. I was not ready to say good-bye to my aunt and yet she had left with out me. She left me to continue living my life, waiting until we would meet again.

During that drive, I think I must have re-lived every moment of the time I spent with my aunt: the hours sitting next to each other on the couch talking, the times we spent doing dishes side by side (with me breaking almost every dish I had come in contact with). During all this reminiscing, a sort of peace came over me. I loved my aunt with all my heart and as long as I continued to remember those times we had together she would always be with me. While that was no small comfort I knew it was true. I could also keep her alive by talking about her to family and friends.

I remember listening to the radio the whole way to the funeral parlor. I heard that song at least four times on the way there. The last time was while I was pulling in to the driveway. I sat in my car and cried. I cried for my self and how I believed it was so unfair to take my aunt at such a young age. I cried for all the times we would not be together, knowing she would not be there when I got married (which I did the following year). I cried for the fact that my children would never know her, never get to love her and be loved by her in return.

As I walked in to the parlor I could not get that song out of my head. I had a feeling that there was a reason I had heard that song so many times that day. The chorus was singing itself over and over in my head. I pulled a picture of my boyfriend and me out of my purse and as I studied the picture I knew why and what I was going to do. I found a pen and wrote a few words on the back of that picture, before gently kissing it and placing it beside my beloved aunt.

I had seen a few family members watching me as I wrote on that picture and place in it her casket. Each of those members made their way over there to read what I had wrote. Not one turned a way with a dry eye. For I had wrote what Colin had so simply put in a song. "I will meet you when my chores are through. I don't know how long I'll be. But I am not going to let you down"

I like to think that I have not let her down. I love to talk about her as much as I can to my children. I tell them as much about her as I can. I like to tell them about how she used to iron my uncles pants and give me the credit. How she never got mad when I broke all the glasses in the house. And how she stood at the sink and cleaned a pair of tennis shoes with bleach water and a toothbrush so I could have clean shoes to go to a dance in .

I still listen for that song. Sometimes when I hear it I smile and images of my beautiful aunt smiling flash threw my mind. Other times my eyes immediately fill with tears. In either case never have I reached over to turn it off. It is my link to a very special some one. My Aunt Pam.

Cindy Dillon, is a 28 year old mother of two. When not spending time with her beautiful children, she is usually reading one novel after another, or writing her own. She dreams of having her own work published someday and would even like to start her own publishing company.          CynthiaDillon@comcast.net