Aunt Viv
by Helen Chappell She wasn’t my aunt by blood, but we adopted each other early on. She was Aunt Viv from the start ~ none of that Miss Viv or Miss Brannock stuff. And when she slipped quietly away in her sleep at home at the age of 95, I felt so blessed to have had her in my life, and blessed to know that she died as she wished. She was in her own home in Church Creek, surrounded by all the wonderful things a life of travel, adventure and friendship had brought her. Vivian Brannock loved life. She embraced it and lived it. “I may be a “miss,” but I haven’t missed much,” she once told me after we’d had a couple or three margaritas on her famous porch. She loved almost everyone she met. And almost everyone she met loved her. You just couldn’t help loving her. Her heart was as big as Dorchester County, and then some. I had heard about Aunt Viv long before I met her. My friends Tab and Terri Brannock talked about Tab’s aunt all the time, so I was ready for a living legend, and I was not disappointed. Aunt Viv had done a lot of the raising of her nephew Tab. He is the oldest of four boys, and Aunt Viv enjoyed spending a lot of time
Vivian Amorette Brannock with him. They fished, they hunted, they played, and all her life, she treated him like her own. The feeling was mutual. Tab and Terri were married at Aunt Viv’s White Haven Methodist Church in Church Creek, and their wedding reception was at her house. From time to time, someone would play DVDs from old home movies, and I learned the family lore. I learned enough to raise my margarita glass every time Uncle 9