Family Matters
March 20, 2005 | In: Family
An aunt passed away last night after suffering from congestive heart failure. Her name was Hallie Marie Simmons and she was the last sibling of my grandmother, having been born in 1916 in Macon County, Tennessee, near the border with Kentucky.
When Aunt Marie was a teenager attending Shortridge High School, she became mentally ill with a form of schizophrenia. As a result, she spent the vast majority of her life institutionalized, including a long stint at Central State Hospital here in Indianapolis. Her last years were spent at a nursing home on the north side of the city.
My great-grandparents took care of Marie’s affairs, until they both died. The role then fell on to my grandmother, and then landed on my father, after Grandma passed away in the early 80’s.
Today I went with my parents to make arrangements for her cremation. Afterwards, we went over to the nursing home and gathered her remaining belongings. All we took were a few clothes and a television, and the rest is simply being donated. She didn’t have much.
We will receive her ashes sometime this coming week. We haven’t made any firm plans on what to do with the ashes, but across the border from Kentucky, in Tennessee, is this small cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried. We might take her ashes there, near the graves of her parents, or we may find the location of the old family farm and do it there.
It is unfortunate that I never got know my aunt, but then, at the same time, there was a never a chance of knowing her or having a functional relationship. She just wasn’t there, in her head. But now I think I’m just happy that her suffering is over.
