Not too long ago I had a total of 10 aunts and uncles living in Southern Florida. Last week I visited the single remaining aunt in Tamarch, FL.

Aunt Molly is 87 years young and she has one foot planted firmly in the past and the other foot solidly ensconced in the present. Her lakeside apartment is immaculate and she still is the blond blue-eyed tender-loving person of my childhood.

She slowly entered her modern Florida kitchen and turned out a delicious dish of lox, eggs, onions and mushrooms. She kept apologizing to say she had nothing in the refrigerator or in the apartment, but she kept placing food and drink on the table. Pictures of children and grandchildren lined the walls and table tops.

Every step she took, every slice she made and every word she uttered had meaning. Nothing was wasted!

At the age of 11 she emigrated from Poland and moved directly to the Bronx. She is one of six children, three brothers and two sisters. Her father, a large broad-shouldered man in the shoe business, once purchased an entire block in Lynbrook, LI. Later it was divided into 14 homes.

Sometime in the 1940s she married my Uncle Leon. They had two children, Stephan and Dolly. Leon and Molly worked very hard together in a dry goods store on Havemeyer and South Second Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Not long into our visit, she stated that she rued the day that Leon refused to buy the building that housed the store, for $50,000."Today that building would sell for over a million dollars. Williamsburg is the new Greenwich Village with all the artists."

She is a great housekeeper, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Her head is very much in wonderful working order. Earlier in the week we visited some dear friends and family who were not doing quite as well as Molly.

When Lorraine and I left, after planting kisses on Molly's cheek, we had a renewed respect for aging gracefully. As Molly said, "I have always been good to everybody. Maybe that is why God let me live to this age with most of my senses still working."

Maybe, Molly, Maybe!