by Sister Sharon

reprinted with permission from E-Love Stories http://www.e-lovestories.com

My aunt Mindy came to visit. She could stay two weeks. She had an interview in our town for a job as a supervising nurse in our hospital. I really liked her. She brought me a teddy bear. Teddy was brown with big eyes and one ear flopped over. I loved him. I loved her. She was a very special woman in my life. When I look back on my life, she had a huge influence in making me who I am.

I had her all to myself for that first afternoon she stayed with us. Grammar school had let out early for a teacher's meeting and mom was busy. My brothers and sisters wouldn't be home for a few hours. Teddy was excited to meet my other stuffed animals. They were all bears too. Aunt Mindy sat on the couch in our living room as I brought out all my dolls, Samantha, Alice and Belinda, and introduced each of them to her. I made her part of my life. Then she had an idea. Aunt Mindy wanted to share something with me. She liked Jonquils and had brought a whole sack full of bulbs she had dug up from her house. She wanted to plant them with me.

"Sharon, lets you and I get on some old clothes and plant some Jonquils around the house for your mother. Do you have any old clothes?" she smiled at me. "Un huh," I did.

She went to the guest room to change. I changed in my room. Ten minutes later we were digging in Momma's flower bed. We dug holes with two little hand spades. The little bulbs slid, pointed up, an inch of two down and disappeared beneath the earth as I patted them down. I had seen Jonquils before. I liked Jonquils! The lady on the corner had them. They were really pretty in the spring. Last spring hers were blooming in the snow, and let us know that spring was there, even if it was still cold and snow was on the ground with yellow flowers bouncing in the breeze in a solid white yard. We must have planted a hundred of them. It only took a few minutes though, the soil was really soft and it was fall and everything else in the flower bed was already gone from frost. We were just having a really nice day. It was almost summer to me. It was summer in my heart. The way my Aunt Mindy talked so nice to me she made me feel warm inside. Planting the flowers with her made me feel special.

"Sharon, I have an idea! Let's let this be our secret! Our bulbs will just be there in the ground. Then next spring they will pop up and the flowers will be there. Let's not tell anyone else we planted them. Your Momma will be so surprised when she has new flowers next spring! It will be our secret, Our surprise for your mother! What do you think?" she smiled a secret sort of smile at me.

"Oh, Aunt Mindy, that is— Yes, Yes— Momma will love that. I won't tell her, if you don't!" I bubbled back. I loved surprises, getting or giving them!

We were already dirty and in our old clothes. It was a good time to show her my special place in the woods. It was my secret. I wanted her to be part of that secret too. I hadn't taken anyone there except my friend Susan. I had this little place I had made. I took branches and made a shelter just big enough for me and a friend, if I invited one. I went there when I needed to be alone or was in trouble. Mindy just fit. We sat in there and talked, well I talked. She mostly listened. She was quiet. Some of it was that she really was a good listener. Some of it was from her own problems. She felt she was a failure after her husband left her and didn't want to talk about it. She bottled it all up inside her. Still, she made me feel really special. She was a grown up, a registered nurse even, and she listened to me.

Aunt Mindy didn't treat me like a baby. I was ten and it was one of the few times anyone seemed to notice me when I was being nice or just wanted to talk. It was exciting too, now we shared secrets! I was so happy to have her there. I knew she was going to be a special friend in those first few hours. She was the baby of the family, like me. She seemed to know what another baby of the family needed. Aunt Mindy was my favorite aunt from the moment I first saw her. We understood each other, I think. At least she understood me.

Mom was much older than her. It was almost like they were from different families. They really didn't get to know each other very much when they were growing up. There were nine kids in the family, and Mom just sort of remembered her as the youngest. She had to babysit her reasonably often along with another little sister and brother the last few years momma lived with her family. To have her a nurse and visiting was different to Mom. She had left home when Mindy was four. Mom still thought of her as her baby sister.

She had grown up and both, married. Mom had eight of us. Aunt Mindy didn't have any kids. No one knew why. She wanted them, but she was in her late twenties and had been married for almost eight years and didn't have any. She was really sad when mom first talked to her. Her husband had wanted children too.

They had been so happy when they married. I was a little girl then, a baby, almost. Momma told me she just looked and looked at me the day before her wedding. Aunt Mindy had held me and read to me until I went to sleep the night before she got married. Momma said she wanted a baby just like me, and expected one to start in her as soon as she married. I was ten now and she had never had a baby. She was so sad about that. Then one day a few weeks ago her husband had come home and sat Aunt Mindy down to talk. It seems he had been having an affair with another lady. His other lady was pregnant. He left Aunt Mindy to marry her. Aunt Mindy was heart broken. She had cried for weeks. It was why she had come to see us. She couldn't stay in the town where she had been living, with them there. She still loved her husband and his new wife had been her friend. It would be too hard. So we got her! I know she was in such pain! I saw the pain in her eyes. She listened to me, but there were times she just looked into space and tears would well up in her eyes. I was so glad she was there even if she were sad. I knew I would cheer her up. I wanted her to be happy! Her just being there had already cheered me up a whole lot. I was so happy.

I was going to make her happy. Nothing could go wrong! Then it did! I had forgotten completely until my brother came in and gave the note to mom. My teacher had sent it home. I had completely forgotten once I was showing Aunt Mindy around. I had been talking in class again. It was right at twelve and my teacher didn't have time to deal with it before her meeting, so she just gave a quick note to my brother to take home as he was in the next room. Mom just glared at me. I was always in trouble. I didn't mean to be, but I was. With all the kids in our family, and all their activities it seemed that the only attention I got was for doing something wrong, so I guess I just did things more so mom would pay attention to me.

She did this time! Without any discussion, she reached in the kitchen drawer and got out her paddle. I couldn't say anything in front of Aunt Mindy! She was my friend, and being so nice to me. This just couldn't happen in front of her! She was so nice. She just couldn't see this happen to me!! I choked up. I started crying, "Please Momma! Please Momma!" I looked up at Aunt Mindy. It wasn't the paddling I was crying about. "Please Momma, not in front of Aunt Mindy!! Please, not in front of Aunt Mindy!" She didn't listen! Mom had me over her knee in a flash, with my dress pulled up and my panties, down. I tried to say I was sorry, but before I could, mom started. She spanked me as hard and fast as she could. It felt like my bottom was on fire. I sobbed out I am sorry so many times that I lost count. The spanking continued until I was crying so completely I couldn't say anything, just cry. It hurt awfully! More than that I had just made a friend, and she had to see me spanked! That hurt most of all! I had just been smiling and talking to her so warmly just seconds before, now my face was drenched with tears and I was sobbing! I was so ashamed and so embarrassed! That hurt more than the spanking. "Sharon, I want you to start being a good girl!" Momma finished the spanking.

I looked up and saw Aunt Mindy's face. A tear rolled down her cheek! I didn't understand. No one ever cried because I had a spanking before. She looked so sad! I was so embarrassed! As I pulled up my panties, I stammered back at Momma, "I am a good girl, Momma. I am not a bad girl!" I wasn't a bad girl. I just talked too much. I didn't want Aunt Mindy to think I was a bad girl, but she was crying too. I looked at her thorough my blurred vision, "I am not a bad girl, Aunt Mindy! Am I?" I didn't want to be a bad girl. I didn't want Aunt Mindy to believe I was a bad girl! But, she was crying! Was it because I was a bad girl? She didn't say anything. She just shook her head.

I just couldn't stand it, if Aunt Mindy thought I was a bad girl too. I ran to my room. I threw myself on my bed and kept crying. She was so nice to me, and I had to be a bad girl and be punished in front of her. She didn't have a little girl. Right then I wished I were her little girl. I knew she cared about me and had cried when I was paddled! She cared that I was paddled! I wouldn't be a bad girl for Aunt Mindy! After a little while, there was a knock on my door. It was Aunt Mindy. She had talked to mom, and apparently mom told her I was always in trouble. She was going to work with me while she was there and see if she could help. Aunt Mindy didn't think I wanted to always be a bad girl and in trouble. She didn't believe I was a bad girl! Maybe together we could find a way for me to be better. Mom had been spanking me more and harder lately, but that wasn't working. I didn't want to be in trouble always either. I got up and hugged her. "I don't want to be a bad girl, Aunt Mindy. I don't!" Aunt Mindy hugged me back, "First off, you are not a bad girl! I know that already! I think you just need a little more love. It is hard being the youngest of eight kids. I know I am the youngest of nine. My aunt made a difference for me. Maybe I can make a difference for you. What do you think?" I nodded, "Un huh!" and hugged her tighter with tear streaks drying on my cheeks. After school and in the evenings, Aunt Mindy and I spent a lot of time together. It was special time that Aunt Mindy gave to me.

During the day and at night after I went to bed, mom got to know her sister. They visited quite a bit that week first week. Aunt Mindy used the time to get to know mom as she really had never known her. My mother was more of a second mom to her than a sister when she was a little girl. Now they were both women and being real sisters was new to them. Mom was the second oldest child. She and her three brothers were closer together, and shared one life. Mindy had another with her brother and sister that were two and four years older than her. Somewhere in between lived Aunt Karin and Uncle John.

My grandfather had moved them to a new farm after my mother and the older boys had already grown up and left home. With the new farm came a new life and a new community. That community had on the surface been pretty much like the old one, but there were differences. For one there was a new doctor, and new neighbors. They had different ideas than the old doctor and neighbors.

For one thing their old doctor was pretty much a pill pushing kind of doctor, something not that common in that age. He used a lot of pills and elixirs in his practice. The new doctor was an Adventist, and was much more into natural things, foods, exercise and physical medicine. One of those things was the enema. I don't think mom ever had an enema growing up. Aunt Mindy became very familiar with them as a child. That was part of why she became a nurse. Being sick and being cared for by good nursing procedures was something positive to her. In my mom's youth, it was pretty much take a dose of medicine then grandma left you in your room. You either got well or died, but not much attention was given either way. That was the way mom was too. She was a good mom, but you didn't get much extra attention when you were sick. Nurturing just wasn't her thing.

In fact, Mom always gave me the most attention when I was in trouble. I hated being spanked, but it was better than no attention at all! At least then I knew mom loved me. I so much missed being on her knee as she read stories to me when I was a little girl. Being over her knee listening to the paddle popping on my bottom was so much worse than listening to stories about Peter Cottontail, but it was the only reason mom had had me on her knee for years! I wanted to be a baby again and have mommy love me like she did then! If I couldn't, and nothing else seemed to get her to notice me, I seemed to just get in trouble. What I wanted was to be loved. I knew Mom loved me, but she had trouble expressing that to me except by trying to make me be good by punishing me when I was bad. Mindy was different, I knew that when I saw the tear on her cheek when I was paddled. I knew at least one kind eyed lady would love me for being good, or if I just needed her love when I was sick or not feeling good.

She said a lot of her compassion came from Grandpa's sister who came to live with them as part of the deal on the farm. She was an old maid, never married. I never understood why. I remembered seeing her when we visited. She was really sweet, very nurturing. My grand aunt just never married. She reached middle age living with her parents. When her parents died, she inherited the farm, but couldn't run it herself nor did she have anyone to leave it to. My grandpa sold his farm and agreed to take over his dad's farm. As part of the deal, she came to live with her brother and his family. It worked out really well. I know Momma said, grandma was really worried about living in a house with two women. My Momma had married my father and left home the year before this all happened, so she never lived with Grandpa's sister. On trips their new home she found out it had worked really well. Grandma still ran everything. My grand aunt had never had her own home and always lived with and listened to her mother and father. She acted like sort of between a sister and another daughter to my grandma. My Grandma more or less took the place of her mother and everyone was happy. My grand aunt was happy. She had a whole family to take care of her now. And she took care of them in ways they had not had before. She was a wonderful cook and kept an immaculate house. This suited my Grandmother who was more at home in the fields working with my grandpa. They made a great threesome. This carried over to health care as well. Grandma didn't have much use for sick people. My grand aunt was totally at home nursing the family.

The new doctor's recommendations of enemas and more personal care were something that my grand aunt didn't mind doing at all. All the family had their enemas and other care when needed from their maiden aunt. When she had to have one, my grandmother was said to have fussed the most about it. Grandpa didn't mind, neither did the kids. Mindy just grew up with them. They weren't anything new to her. She didn't remember the first time her aunt gave her an enema. It was before she started school. She picked up her love of caring for other people from her aunt. This lady had a big influence on my younger aunts and uncles, Mindy, most of all.

Mindy finished highschool and went straight to nursing school and finished it before she married. There was a little hospital in our town. She thought about working there and wanted to get to know her older sister and her family anyway. I felt like it were me she wanted to get to know. She always wanted a little girl like me. It was a chance for her to start over as well. She didn't want to go home. No one divorced then. Being divorced made her a failure. She was ashamed to go home and live among her old friends and their husbands and families. It would just have hurt too much. In our town she was testing to see if she would fit.

It was fall. My dad packed up my older brothers and headed to the woods to get our winter supply of wood. On Wednesday mom had to go with a church group to another town for some sort of activity. We were all in school, so Mindy was to have a day to herself.

It didn't work out! I woke up with an awful cold. Mom would have stayed home because I was home, but Mindy would not have it. She said she would take care of me. Mom went on her outing. I heard them talking before mom left though. Mindy said, "It really is the best thing to do." Mom said, "All right, if you think it will help, go ahead." Then she got in the church bus with the rest of the ladies and left. Aunt Mindy and I were on our own.

The first thing was she didn't fix me any breakfast! Juices, lots and lots of juices, that was all she brought me! I had to admit I wasn't very hungry anyway. I just wanted to stay covered up in bed. That was fine with Aunt Mindy. She said I needed to just rest and get better. Then she said, "I am going to give you some enemas this morning. They will make you feel better!" I didn't know about that. I knew what an enema was. Most of the kids around the neighborhood got them. I just didn't. Momma didn't give them.

Aunt Mindy asked me, "Do you know what an enema is?" "Un huh" I answered, "Your mom puts this hose in your bottom and fills you up with water!" I knew what an enema was! I just was not so sure I wanted to know that well what an enema was! I had been over to visit a class mate from school about two weeks earlier. We had been playing in her room with the hall door open. I saw her mom go into her older sister's room carrying a bulging hot water bottle with a hose with a little black tip on it. In about ten minutes she came back out and the bag was almost empty. I remember she hung it up to dry in the bathroom after she finished using it. About ten minutes later her mom opened her sister's door again and said something to her. Her sister came running out with just her night gown on and made a bee line for the bathroom. I know she didn't have anything except her night gown on because I saw her butt. My friend noticed me staring, and volunteered, "Mom, just gave her an enema!" She ran like she was really in a hurry to get to the toilet. I wasn't so sure I ever wanted to want to go to the bathroom that bad. Enemas had to be like having the mother of all cases of diarrhea! Now my Aunt Mindy wanted to do that to me!

I was really interested though. I was ten. Like all kids that age, controlling my bowels was really important to me. Watching her sister run, the look of urgency on her face and knowing that her bottom was full of water, got my attention. It was something that I was afraid of, I mean, nothing is so embarrassing as losing control of your elimination to a ten-year-old. It was obvious that my friend's older sister, she must have been about 16, was just barely able to hold all that water in her bottom. I felt sorry for her for a minute. I told Susan, I had never had an enema. Then my friend added, "Momma gives really GOOD enemas!" She explained that they didn't hurt. They just made you have to go to the bathroom really badly. My friend smiled, "I always can hold my enemas. I am a good girl for momma when I need one!" She was proud of how well she took her enemas. On hearing that, the sorry for feeling became a little envy too. I wanted to be a good girl for mommy too, and have her pay attention to me like that! Her sister had just taken all that water in her bottom, held it and gotten it to the toilet too. It was something to be proud of, even if taking a good enema and holding it really well was something that she couldn't tell anybody about!

At that moment, I had both been glad it wasn't me running to the bathroom, and sort of sad it wasn't me. This time it was going to be me. I was even less sure of my feelings about that! Aunt Mindy put my mind at ease, "Your friends get enemas at home don't they?" "Uh huh" I admitted. I told her about my friend's sister getting an enema. Aunt Mindy explained, "You know how your head is achey, and you feel achey all over?" That I knew about! I was really feeling it! "After you enemas you will feel a lot better, and it helps your body fight the cold, so you will be better quicker with the enemas." "OK," I agreed! I knew she was going to do it. I was ready, already! She told me to go to the bathroom and have a number one, and a number two, if I could. I did. After I was done, Aunt Mindy got it ready for me.

First there was the sound of running water in the bathroom. I snuggled under my covers and covered my ears, trying not to hear! Then she came back into my bedroom and asked, "You haven't ever had an enema have you?" "Un Unh!" I acknowledged. She said, "Ok, little girls usually have their enemas in the bathroom. Since you haven't ever had one before, I think I had better give you your first enema this way, then when you know how to take it, we will do the others in bed, like your friend's sister had." I got up and followed her to the bathroom. She had a big blue bulb with a white nozzle on it sitting on the sink, and a kitchen pot of warm water. "Go ahead and take your panties off, honey." she ordered. Then she turned around to face me. My face got red as I took my panties off. Aunt Mindy sat down on the toilet and put the pot of water on a stool in front of her.

I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect her to put me over her knee, but she did! My night gown fell almost over my head as I balanced on her knee with my bottom straight up. I tensed up! Was she going to spank me? The only time I ever was bottom up over anyone's knee before was to be spanked. "Aunt Mindy, please don't spank me!" my voice quivered. She stopped. Holding my bare bottom in a strong grip she leaned over and whispered in my ear to comforted me, "Honey, I am not going to spank you. I am never going to spank you! You get spanked enough! I don't want to ever do that to you! This enema needs to flow up inside you. That works best when you are bottom up like this. I am not going to spank you! I don't want to ever hurt you! The enema won't hurt you. It will just make you feel better." "I'm sorry, Aunt Mindy, everyone always just spanks me this way. I don't want you to ever spank me either! I'm sorry!" I still quivered. I just couldn't stop saying I was sorry in that position. It was a reflex.

My bottom would usually be on fire by this time over Mom's knee. She just held me steady with my bottom cheek in her hand. It felt warm and loving, so gentle. I gradually relaxed. She was melting something in my heart. I didn't know what sex was, and it wasn't that. I wanted to be loved like a baby, not a grown up! I needed to be loved and mothered by a grown up. Mom didn't do it. No one had time to love me. Aunt Mindy loved me and was sitting in the bathroom with me balanced over her knee ready for an enema instead of busy with the house work or something else like mom always was. I wished again that I could be her little girl again, even then, if I were her little girl and she had to spank me, I would have remembered her gentle touch as I waited for my enema. Being naked for an enema or a spanking is a kid's thing. Grown up feelings shouldn't enter into it, and don't for kids. They feel mothered when a good enema is given. This was the first time I experienced that.

I watched over my shoulder as she filled the bulb, flipped it straight up and carefully pushed any air out of it, then refilled it. When it was completely full of water, she coated the nozzle with Vaseline and it disappeared behind my bottom. I couldn't help but feel like I was about to have a spanking and looked down, tensing up. Within a second, instead of a pop, I felt her fingers at my bottom. She spread my buttocks apart and then I felt the nozzle. It slipped in smoothly and just tingled a bit. It felt good, nothing at all like a spanking! As she worked the bulb, squeezing its contents into me. I felt it surge inside my rectum. My eyes got big. I tightened my buttocks, but it just kept coming, until she got it all in. Another little tingle. The nozzle raced out of me. I could see the bulb as she dipped it straight in the pot again. It filled and she got it out. It dove into my bottom again. It always slid easily into me, and then there was a surge of water gushing in me. We just kept doing this over and over again. I don't know how many bulbs of enema Aunt Mindy gave me, but it seemed like a whole lot. I began to quiver.

"How are you doing?" she asked. "OK, I think! I have to go to the bathroom!" I stammered. I did have to go. I listened as she filled the bulb again. The next time after that, I began to quiver more. She squeezed it, and the pressure was different. The difference in pressure on the bulb came from pressure in me. I was really full! We held our positions for a minute. My colon was pushing one way. Aunt Mindy and the bulb were pushing the other. Eventually, my colon gave up, and the bulb pushed its surge of warm water into me. I really had to go now! "Aunt Min–- dy! Can I go to the bathroom, Now!" I pleaded. She just rocked me and rubbed my lower back. "In a minute, honey, in a minute!" I held on. True to her word she, let me climb off her knee in a minute, getting up off the toilet and lifting the seat cover for me. We quickly changed places. I had never been so glad to get my bottom on the toilet!

I wasn't too bad about taking the enema, but now, I was embarrassed. I had never had to go that bad, but Aunt Mindy was right beside me again! Trying to hold on and not go was too hard. Just as I had poured out tears with my spanking, I began to pour out my enema. It was more than I could control. This was better. The spanking had hurt so badly on my bare bottom. The enema going in and coming out just plain felt so good. She talked to me, "Honey, don't let it out fast, hold back a minute now." I did. Then in a minute she told me to let go again, and I did. "It won't cramp, or feel bad, if you do this, honey." she lectured, "If you push it out too fast, or if I give I were to you too fast, it causes cramps." I didn't want cramps. I did want attention. She sure knew how to give attention to me. I was happy again, but it was a happiness I wouldn't be able to explain to others. It took me a bit, but soon I was finished with my first enema. I knew it wouldn't be my last that day, and I hoped for more on other days from my Aunt.

When I was ready for my next enema, she carried in a towel, a jar of Vaseline, and a big, bulging, hot water bottle with a hose and little black nozzle on it, just like the one I had seen two weeks ago. I blinked. I didn't say anything. It didn't take her long to get down to business. "Take off your panties, honey." She told me. I had put them back on. I took them off again. Then she had me pull up my night gown and put the towel under me. The next thing I knew I was on my side. Aunt Mindy was spreading my bottom again. I felt the little nozzle slide in. It sort of tingled, but not as much as the bulb's nozzle. "Are you ready?" she opened the clamp. I never answered. I felt this surge of water in my bottom and sighed as she lifted the bag up. It was going in me, and this time it never stopped! My eyes got big! I really was having another enema! I held my teddy close to me. Aunt Mindy told me, "Breathe deep now, honey, and just let it in." I wanted to go, but it is funny. You feel funny about telling someone else you have to go, even when they are giving you an enema. Then she asked me, "You feel like you need to go, don't you?" "Un huh!" seemed an appropriate answer for my first word during this enema. "Just hold on! If you feel like you can't hold it, just tell me and we can stop for a minute." I just held on. I didn't answer her. I guess I was very typical. Almost everyone, when they have an enema, gets really quiet and just holds on. It has something to do with needing to go. It is something most of us are quiet about. I was. It went in waves. I really had to go, then I didn't. Aunt Mindy just kept pouring it in me. After a while the times when I didn't feel like I needed to go became less and less. My aunt clicked the clamp closed and just rubbed my back and stomach a few times. That helped. Then she would give me more enema. She kept doing this until finally I thought I was going to pop. I was so full of the enema that there was no place in me left to put any more water. My legs started to quiver. I said, "Aunt Mindy---!" with a quivering little voice. "Un huh!" she gently mimicked me as she patted me on the back! She stopped the flow and reached around and rubbed my abdomen. It was tight— and full! She asked me, "Do you feel really full yet?" I shook my head "YES!" then added, "Are we done?" Aunt Mindy lifted up the bag and clicked the clamp open again, "Not yet, honey, just a little more!" The water lowered just a little more in the bag. I began to quiver big time. "Well, it is up to you! How much more do you think you can take?" "No more, Aunt Mindy, NO MORE!" I was sure. "I thought you might say that," my aunt calmly noted as she lowered the bag and closed the clamp. "You have taken a pretty good enema— You are going to do just fine with enemas!" she announced as she pulled the nozzle out of me.

I sighed again. I had wanted it. I had not wanted it. Now I had an enema in me. I knew what it felt like. It was OK. It actually felt pretty good. I mean I was a little panicky about needing to go, but it felt ok. I felt like I had accomplished something, working with Aunt Mindy to get it into me. I don't know exactly how to explain it. The friend that I visited whose sister had had an enema while I was there had a little brother. Her mom was potty training him. He was two. She made a big deal out of it when he went potty in his potty chair. I felt like the expression on his face when he went potty. I guess it is pretty much like that. He went potty when he was suppose to, his mom gave him loves, and he was happy. He did it. I did it too. I really liked aunt Mindy. I wanted to please her, like I wanted to please mom and my teachers at school. We had worked together to get this enema in me, and I was holding it in to please her. I was a good girl!!! The way she smiled I knew she was happy with me. I was happy too.

Then she told me I had to hold it for ten minutes. Ten minutes can be a long time to a kid with a big enema in them. First she covered me up, then she sat down on the bed behind me and rubbed my back the whole ten minutes. I didn't say anything. I just loved it. Mom never had time to do anything like this for me. The feel of her hands on my back as the water surged in my bottom washed and rubbed away a little web of insecurity that always niggled me. I felt so mothered. Aunt Mindy was giving me mothering, like my mother never did. As I got to know her and my family better, it had been the same with her. Her aunt was the one that nurtured her as she was doing for me. It was something I had never had. I can't tell you how loved it made me feel. I almost cried, I felt so loved. I hugged Teddy, and passed the love on to my baby. He just looked at me with one glass eye. I think he felt the love too.

When she let me up to go potty, she told me again to go really slow. I did. It didn't hurt me at all. I never had a cramp during or as I released the enema. I did feel better as soon as I started to let it out, but I had to run to the toilet three more times before it was completely out. Then I snuggled back in my bed with the covers up to my ears. I felt so warm, and she was right. I felt better. I was almost asleep when she brought the enema bag back in again. This time I was ready and wanted it. I took more water and at the end, when she was ready to stop, I asked her, "Can you wait a minute? If you can give me a minute, maybe I can get more in me." She waited and rocked me. I took almost another pint. I quivered. She asked, "What do you think? Can you take any more?" I thought a minute. "Do you want me to take more?" I was struggling. "It is important to take as much enema as you can hold, Honey" my aunt explained. I tried, but I couldn't. "I'm sorry, Aunt Mindy!" I apologized. She rocked my hip, "Honey, you did really well. You are the best enema patient your age I have ever had! You are a GOOD girl" I beamed my biggest and most sincere smile at her. I was a GOOD girl!

She covered me up really well, and just sat down beside me on the bed and brushed the hair out of my face. I smiled at her again, "I love you, Aunt Mindy!" I did love her too. I loved Momma, but Momma would never do anything like this for me, and Aunt Mindy was so gentle. I wished she would be taking care of me forever. I had three enemas the first day, and one each the next two days. I loved each one more than the last! Aunt Mindy also played games with me and read to me. I just watched her and thought how wonderful it would be to be her little girl. Her children were going to be so lucky to have her for their mom when she had them.

I became sure she was going to take the job in town and be able to live with us. I didn't want her to leave. I heard her and mom talking about it, Aunt Mindy living with us! It was going to happen. I was sure! I don't think I ever remembered being so happy. I loved her so much. She made me feel loved so much. She was only here two weeks, but in that time Aunt Mindy completely captured my heart. I was going to grow up with her taking care of me. I was going to be her GOOD girl. I started right then. For the whole time she was there, I did not get in trouble once! I did all my chores before Momma asked me! I didn't talk in class! I did everything right. I was my Aunt Mindy's good girl!

She read me stories at night before I went to sleep just like Momma did before I could read. We played. We talked. She was my best friend ever! Momma only scolded me because she said I was too much of a pest to Aunt Mindy. Aunt Mindy was so quick to correct her! She told me I was no bother at all! She was happy to spend time with me! But she was not happy with everything. She was older than any of the other single women at church or in our community. I was her only friend other than my mother, and she was having trouble finding her place in the community. I guess this was very common for divorced women then. She hated being divorced and wanted a husband and family so much! She was loving me more and more like a daughter. We both needed that!

I couldn't get her a husband, or babies of her own, but I could be that daughter to her. That is what I was going to do for my Aunt Mindy! I would be her little girl, always! We would plant flowers. She would take care of me. I would be her girl and she would live with us always! I knew that if I were a good enough girl for her, that she wouldn't leave us! I was trying so hard! Then all my plans went up in smoke. Aunt Mindy wanted to stay with me, but she didn't think she would like working in the hospital all that much, and something else came through.

Grandma called and she had gotten a letter. It turns out, she had applied to the Navy. The navy had accepted her. She was going to start as a lieutenant. She was going to be a Navy nurse and see the world— or more importantly the sailors! We had talked about boys. I wasn't ready for such things. I really didn't like boys right then. She did, but older boys, sometimes with gray hair. She was beginning to hope again. Being in the Navy would be heaven for her, with all those men to notice her. She felt that she would find someone to love her there. She and I both knew she would. I just couldn't stand her leaving!! I took it really well until the day before she was to go. Then I came apart!

I talked like a magpie in class the next day, but not before I had a crying jag and the teacher tried to comfort me! She wouldn't even spank me, nor did she send a note to Momma! Then I pulled Samantha Jane's hair and yelled at her! My teacher just took me aside and told me to behave, nothing more! She did write a note to Momma that time though. I carried is straight home after school and gave it to Momma while Aunt Mindy was standing there! Momma just got this soft look in her eyes and hugged me! "Momma— aren't you going to paddle me?" I was shocked, "I have been a bad girl!"

Momma shook her head and gave me the note to read. Mrs. Hunter had said I was really upset about my aunt leaving and needed some special love! She didn't say anything about me being bad! "But, Momma, I was bad!" I added, looking to the drawer where she kept the paddle. "I am not going to spank you, honey! I do want you to be the girl you have been while Aunt Mindy has been here though. I know you are upset that she is leaving. I know you love her, and I know you are a good girl!"

I looked at Aunt Mindy, "Please don't leave. Please don't leave! I will be a good girl, Aunt Mindy. How can I be a better girl, so you won't leave!! Please!" I began to cry! I knew it was my fault. If I could just be a better girl, my Aunt Mindy would stay. I wasn't a good enough girl for her to stay with me! "I'm sorry, Aunt Mindy! I'm sorry! Please stay! I will be a better girl! I'm sorry!" I was sobbing. She couldn't go. It was my fault she was going! I was sure! I grabbed her and crying told her "Please, please don't go Aunt Mindy! Please! Stay with us! Please stay with us!" She hugged me back, and looked me in the eyes. She was crying too!

"I don't want to leave you, Honey! I love you. You are the baby girl I never had!! I love you so much! I just don't belong here! I need to be where there are other single people, where maybe I can meet Mr. Right, and have a life again, Honey. IT IS NOT YOU!" she sobbed as she held me! " Honey, I am never going to leave you! We can write. I will write you when I get settled and you can write me! We will be pen pals!--- Honey, I am never going to leave you! I have you right here in my heart! We can have a sign! Every spring, the Jonquils bloom. Every time you see a Jonquil bloom--- know that I love you!" She held her hand over her heart. "I know you have me in your heart!" She put her hand over mine. Then she said, "Some day when I have a little girl, I want her to be just like you. Until then you will be my only little girl, my baby— If your mom doesn't mind?" She looked up at Mom. Mom had a soft look to her, she shook her head, she was almost crying too. She didn't mind.

Aunt Mindy left the next day while I was at school. I never did have a chance to say goodby to her! We did write. I wrote her a long letter every day for a month. Mom could see how much she meant to me. I loved her, but I don't think mom had realized just how much. She was the adult that made me feel so loved in those days that she took care of me and was my friend, that I always loved her, and wanted to be like her. Then I wrote her every week. It was my Tuesday evening routine. I was so happy she wrote me back too. I wrote her about school, and my projects, friends, church and nice things I saw and felt. Momma said years later that I was never the same after Aunt Mindy's visit. I changed. I almost never got at trouble in school. My grades went up and everyone said what a GOOD girl I was. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could see Aunt Mindy telling me what a good girl I was. I knew she loved me and wanted me to be a good girl for her.

She wrote me about all the places she was going and saw. She was stationed in Hawaii. No one in our family had ever been in a pace like that. It was getting colder. In Hawaii it was always summer. Aunt Mindy loved the beach. She went swimming every day on the beach! Every day was a sunny day! She never wore a coat. She said it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. She wanted me to see it. She sent us all sorts of pictures. It really was beautiful. She met a nice sailor. He was a commander and was the captain of his own ship. She started keeping time with him and wrote me all about him.

Then she wrote that just before his ship sailed on a two-week cruise, he had taken her to a very nice restaurant, then for a walk on the beach in the moonlight. He got down on his knees in the sand and asked her to marry him. She said "Yes!!!" She was so happy. It came through the letter. I bounced up and down when I read it! Mom said I was as bouncy as a kangaroo when I was happy! My aunt Mindy was getting married again. I was happy for her, as was all my family. I wrote her right back, as did Mom. We wanted to know all about everything. I wanted to be her flower girl, but it was too far. She wrote us about Hawaii. It sounded so wonderful. We all thought they would get married there. None of us had ever been to a place where it didn't snow. It was much too far to go for anything, even Aunt Mindy's wedding.

That next Sunday, it was cold, when we went to church. It wasn't long after we got home that our neighbor came running over. He yelled to my dad. Dad rushed in to turn the radio on. The president was talking. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor! They couldn't do that. They just couldn't! I cried! What if something happened to Aunt Mindy's commander!! We were all shocked. We knew she would be so overwhelmed taking care of all the hurt military men. The news just got worse and worse as the radio talked of nothing else. We were at war! There wasn't much personal news at first. Everything was in upheaval.

I got a letter from her the next day! It talked about her new husband to be, and how wonderful he was. Then it went on to say, that just as we expected, they were going to be married in January, on a beautiful sunny warm day in Hawaii. Then in the spring when the Jonquils were blooming they planned to take leave and come see us. Aunt Mindy was coming home with her new husband. She was going to bring him to see me!! I was so happy!

I went back to school. Everyone was talking about the war. I was sort of a celebrity. Everyone knew my Aunt Mindy was in the military, and was at Pearl Harbor. I really couldn't wait until I got her next letter. I knew she would tell me, us, all about it, and all the people she helped. I knew she would be the Florence Nightingale of this war. I was so proud of her, knowing she was doing her part in the service of her country.

When I got home from school a couple of days later, Momma was crying. I didn't know what was wrong. Momma didn't cry often. She made me sit down. Then with tears streaming down her face, she looked at me. "Honey— Honey, Aunt Mindy, your Aunt Mindy, Mindy, my baby sister Mindy— Honey, Mindy was killed in the attack. Grandma called, they got the telegram today!!" mom burst into tears again. I got up, "NO! NO! NO! It's not true! She is fine! She will write me another letter and tell us it is a mistake! She is OK!" I got up from the table and ran out the door. I ran to my place in the woods where Aunt Mindy sat and listened to me talk. I just kept saying, "No! No! No!" in my mind. She can't be dead. She is alive in my heart. She is alive! She is coming back to see me. She is going to bring her commander and we are all going to be family! It just wasn't true!

I didn't believe it! I didn't believe it then. I didn't believe it when they had her funeral. There was no casket. She was still in Hawaii and just fine! I knew it. She would write me. I looked in the mail box every day for months. I never believed she would die and leave me! I never got to say good bye! I couldn't accept it! I wouldn't! I just kept the faith, that she was still alive, that she was coming to see me in the Spring, like she promised!

Months went by. I always knew she would come back to me. I knew she wouldn't leave me. I developed a cold spot in my heart as the adult that had shown so much love never wrote, never made any contact. In time it was a wound in my tree of life that grew over. The scar was less visible, but the wound was just as fresh as the day Mom told me she was dead. I had prayed for her every day. I still wrote her and put them in the mail box. Mom would wait till I was gone to school and go get my letters out. She saved every one of them. I found them in a box in Mom's bedroom after she died many years later.

I never cried. I never admitted she was dead. I couldn't! It was my fault. It was my fault that she didn't stay with us. I had been bad. I must have been bad! That was the reason that she was not there with us now! I know when she left, she had said it was because she needed to have a new life, and that she would always love me, but in my mind, I felt that if I had been a better girl she would have stayed. I was trying so hard to be a good girl now. Maybe if I were just a better girl she would have stayed. Maybe if I were a better girl she would write me and tell me it was all a mistake! She would be all right! She and her sailor would come see me in the spring when the Jonquils bloomed. I couldn't stop believing in her, believing she were alive and still loved me.

Then in the spring, I went to the mail box. Inside was a letter from Aunt Mindy. THERE WAS A LETTER FROM AUNT MINDY!!! I was quivering again as I opened it. It began like this----

"December 5, 1941, Dear Sharon, my good girl, My heart is so filled with love for Paul. I am so happy. Still I want you to know. I have not forgotten you. We want you to be our flower girl, but I know you can't come to Hawaii. So when we come home in the spring I want you to find some Jonquils for us and we will have you for our flower girl there. I know you, Sharon. I know you are a good girl. You are a great girl. Someday when Paul and I have a daughter, I want her to be just like you! Sharon, be all you can be. Be the best you can be. Remember, I love you. I will always be there as long as I am in your heart, my wonderful niece. You are a GOOD girl!

Paul and I have talked. If your mother will let you, after we come to visit, maybe you can come visit us over the summer, or even spend the year with us in Hawaii. It is a beautiful place, and we would be so happy to have you with us! Love, Mindy. PS, when the Jonquils bloom again, you will always know I am there, and that your aunt loves you."

I read it. I read it over and over again. We didn't know where the letter came from, but it had been lost during the battle and been found and mailed. Someone had sent it along, maybe never realizing how much it would mean to me. As I read it I almost cried. Tears welled up in my eyes but I stopped them. I held the letter so close to my heart as I ran to my special place. I started to go in and sit down. Then I saw them! I hadn't been there for a few days. My special place was surrounded by a double row of Jonquils!! Their yellow heads bobbing above a snow patch at one point and looking so beautiful. How did she know? Why did her letter arrive just then, when the Jonquils were blooming?

I fell on my knees in the moist wood's earth, a yellow Jonquil bobbing in my face I began to cry. I cried harder and longer than from any spanking I had ever had. I still had not stopped crying when I walked in the kitchen door carrying one bloom. Momma saw it and put her hand to her mouth, "Oh baby, they are blooming!" She began to cry too! I don't know why the bloomed first in the woods. They started blooming in Momma's flower garden the next day. Aunt Mindy had planted a double handful of bulbs around my special place the last day I was at school before she left. She wanted me to always know she loved me. Jonquils bloom every spring for hundreds of years when planted in good soil.

Every spring for decades I made the trek home to see my mother, and walk in the woods to see an ever larger patch of yellow flowers in the snow, and say I love you to my favorite aunt, Mindy. I will love her forever. I never said goodby. She has been with me forever. She is forever my friend, my Aunt Mindy.

I did dig up some of the bulbs and have them in a pot in my house. I split them everywhere we have lived and plant rows of them, yellow flowers of love from a wonderful lady that made my life so much richer by a few days of love.