| Aunt Mimi, I miss you like no other
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| When we were young you were like our second mother
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| The days in Awalt High
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| Stranded at your house for weeks at a time, snowbound
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| Us kids had so much fun at your house
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| Heated by a big black potbelly stove
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| I remember the orange embers glowing
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| I remember the TV at night showing
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| Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley
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| Oh, that was our big night
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| Pepperoni pizza and golden crisp potato chips
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| And drinking root beer
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| Oh, those young prepubescent years
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| Oh, thos young prepubescent yars
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| Nothing to call my own
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| Except what was given to me, I supposed
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| Didn’t have two nickels to scratch together
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| But me and my cousins, we had so much fun together
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| Climbing apple trees and playing hide and seek
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| And the Easter egg hunts
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| There were so many hiding places
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| On those so many acres
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| Rusty cars that went on for days
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| And the barn that was stacked full of hay
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| And the church next door with the yard full of graves
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| And I remember my sister and Jenny playing under the tree next to the house
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| You’d sing «Playmate, oh won’t you play with me
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| Under my apple tree…»
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| Another line about a cellar door
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| «…and we’ll be jolly friends forevermore
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| More more more more more more.»
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| And you guys would do this strategic can clapping thing
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| To each other’s hands while you sang it
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| I remember us watching Jenny and Jimmy ice-skating on the frozen pond
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| We could never coordinate our legs right
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| We never figured out how to skate
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| Aunt Mimi, you were often on your own
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| Your husband out trucking
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| You could make something outta nothing
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| You always made sure we were fed
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| You used real butter, that tasted so good, my mom used margarine
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| I can still smell the frog legs sizzling in your
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| Big black iron skillet and a bluegill and a bass
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| That we caught from the pond
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| You can make anything taste delicious
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| Like a magician waving a magic wand
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| I can still smell your White Shoulders perfume
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| And your expression that you always used
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| How you’d say, «Oh my God, Mark!»
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| Even later in life when I’d surprise you in your room
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| There at the nursing home in Brewster
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| So glad I got to get you on the phone on Thursday
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| That I got a chance to tell you how much I loved you
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| To tell you how much you meant to me
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| And I gotta thank you for taking care of us
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| And how I’d come by and knock on your window next time I was in Ohio
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| Damn, I can’t believe you died there
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| A couple days later alone, nobody allowed in to see you due to COVID
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| But we were all there in spirit and I know you know it
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| I’ve been mourning your loss the last two days
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| Especially this one, 'cause outside, it’s dreary and cold and pouring rain
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| Laying in bed, thinking of my young summer and winter days
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| Remember your smile as bright as a big sunflower
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| Remembering how well you took care of your son and daughters
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| Remembering John Denver’s Greatest Hits on display by the little turntable
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| Remembering your kitchen and your giant oak table
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| Now the sun glowed mellow, yellow light in the summer where the window was
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| Into living room of that low-ceiling house
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| With all that land and acreage in your house, I never once saw miles
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| It’s amazing how nice you kept the place
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| Your home was our refuge, your home was our gathering place
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| I don’t know what to say at this point really
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| Except to say how much I miss you Aunt Mimi
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| Your caring and loving and nurturing ways are not lost on me
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| You and your family have given me
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| Some of my nicest young memories |