I've been an awful Steemian. Life totally got in the way, and other than a weekly short story written on my personal blog, I've written a whole lotta nothing! I tell you, I cannot wait for the golf club to close for the season. I need to get back into my writing groove! For now, allow me to share a short story I wrote in honour of my aunt who passed away on September 1st.

I have been asked, once again, to give the eulogy. My cousin feels he's too close - it is his mother - and says he won't be able to do it. I, of course accepted, having already made the decision to say a few words to honour her anyway.

It's funny, I keep getting asked to do this "job", having now done it for my grandmother, father, and husband. I dunno, maybe it's a calling! One thing is for sure, there will not only be tears, there will definitely be smiles. I can't help it. I will always try to find the sunshine in the dark; or, as Maya Angelou like to say, I try to be a rainbow to someone else's cloud.

©Danny Boweman

Better on the Other Side

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes! She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes!

Ever since she opened Rochelle's email with this week's pic, the bloody song had become an earworm.

For reasons she couldn’t fathom, the stupid song made her think of her beloved aunt, Lucette.

"You're on the other side now, Matante*. I do hope it is pain-free and filled with beauty, as they say it is."

Smiling through her tears, she pictured her aunt: healthy, rounding the bend, drink in hand, singing the song. Letting us all know she much better now.

*Here in Quebec (well in my family at least) we call our uncles "Mononcle" and our aunts "Matante", which means my aunt. We don't just use the tante. It has become a form of endearment to the point that we will say something like: My Matante Lucette... literally meaning "My my aunt Lucette"!