My Cousin Idolina

Sometimes I think about my childhood and I remember so many things.  One of those very vivid memories is about the day my cousin died in 1948, when she was only  six months old.  She had always been a very quiet baby and was not very active,  I remember hearing my mother question my aunt about the lack of development in Idolina, because she didn't seem strong at all and did not move much or even raise her head at all.  Maybe because of that, she died suddenly of what seemed just a minor illness.
My aunt arrived one day in a taxi, crying because the doctor had told her the baby was dying and nothing could be done. Assuming it might be some serious illness, my mother was very angry at my aunt for bringing the dying baby to our house, since I was only four years old.  my aunt assured her that it was not contagious and she stayed in our home until her baby died before the end of the day.
I remember that day in detail.  We lived in a small house, with wooden partitions dividing the house into three living areas.  The partitions did not reach the ceiling and there were no doors between the three areas.  The two doorways to the living room had heavy flowered curtains and I was hidden among the folds, seeing what was happening.When the baby died, a table in the living room to arrange the baby for the wake, in the manner I had seen several times when other people had died in the neighborhood. My aunt sat in a chair, crying as she dressed her baby in her best clothes and laid her on her best little blankets, while my mother screamed at her that she should let other women do this preparation, while dealing with her grief properly. I cried silently seeing my aunt's crying, but even at that age understood that my aunt would want to do everything herself because she loved her baby.
I soon realized that my father being a carpenter, was making the little casket for my cousin.  The next day after and all night wake of friends, relatives and neighbors, the funeral director came to take Idolina to be buried in the cemetery.
My aunt never had any other child.  She had married at thirty six and had already lost two babies before Idolina-one an early miscarriage and the other three days after birth. when Idolina died she was 40, but never had another baby.  She just dedicated herself to being my other mother and I owe a lot to her all my life until the day she died in 1993. I feel that she made me the way I am by contributing everything she could to my learning esperiences.