FBW: Andy’s Picture of a Strong Woman

Please welcome back each of our calendar bloggers as they join us for another week as the featured blogger of the week (FBW). This time they are sharing stories of survival and photos of the strong women in their lives. If you want to know how you can be a part of the Blogger Body Calendar project, please click here.

I had a hard time choosing which woman in my life to share today. Mostly because I feel like these women’s stories aren’t mine to tell. I flay my life out on the internet, but to put a photo of a women whom I love and share her stories seemed hard for me somehow.

So I struggled. Until I occurred to me that the strongest woman I’ve ever known was my Aunt Paula.

I was seven when she passed away, but my memories of her are vivid. Granted, most of what I know of her is through family stories, but isn’t that enough?

She was a single mom doing her damndest to work hard and save money for her daughter, my cousin, to go to college and travel and live a full life.

She was a woman with breast cancer, so stubborn and determined. When she was diagnosed, I’m told they gave her a small time to live, maybe a year or two. But my Aunt Paula wasn’t having it. She wanted to live until her daughter was at least 12, because she believed that give her some time to give my cousin what she’d potentially need. to teach her what she’d need to learn. And she did. She lived seven more years and died not long after my cousin’s 12th birthday.

This is what survival is.

I’m told that’s how she always was, determined to learn and live and do whatever she was told she couldn’t.

I’m told I’m a lot like her. For me, there is no greater compliment.

My Aunt Paula was pure joy and grace to me.

My best memories are sleepovers with just the two of us, going to breakfast in our pajamas (which my parents would never have allowed), and riding on her lap in her wheelchair at the county fair.

I still remember her smell, the feel of her clothing, the sound of her laugh.

I still hate the smell of rubbing alcohol because that’s how her bathroom always smelled when she had one treatment or another.

I can only hope to have one tiny bit of her strength and love.

Aunt Paula, 1981

Andrea (Andy to her friends) blogs at Crazy with a Side of Awesomesauce, and Sprocket Ink. She can also be found sharing a little bit of her crazy on Twitter @andygirl and on Facebook.