Random Musings

Wondering...

This morning, my friend, Nadine, came down for her morning visit to my classroom. I am on planning the first two periods of the school day, so we have a chance to talk, rehash incidents that we might not have had an opportunity to examine and compare notes on at the time they happened, and to get our day started on a positive note. She and I have discovered that we are sort of kindred spirits in our thinking and in the things that make us tick. I hope our chats help her as much they help me.

We had been talking for a while about things in general, and somehow we got on the subject of what people might have to say about someone once they are gone. Like for a eulogy, or the conversations people might have about the person at the family hour, the wake, or at the dinner after the funeral.

She was saying that a childhood neighbor of hers had died of cancer at age 49, and that one of his relatives had called back to the old neighborhood to see if someone might want to have something to say at the funeral or have added to the obituary.

Unfortunately, the guy had been a lowlife, a negative factor in the life of his neighbors as a young man, and nobody had anything good to say about him. She said that her father would probably wind up being the one to step up and do it because he is the kind of man who wouldn't want another man to go his grave in that kind of silence. My father would probably do that, too. That's how men of that era operated.

I shared with Nadine a poem I had written after she and I and other members of our crew drove ten hours to Indiana on a Friday to attend the funeral of one of our girl's father, and then turn around to come right back so that we could be at work on Monday. At the service, several people got up to say such nice things about Mr. Lipscomb. I only met him once, but I was telling Nadine how impressed I had been with his cheerfulness, how friendly and personable a man he was, and with how much his daughter, Wanda, loved him. At the funeral, despite her grief- the death had been relatively sudden- Wanda stood at the podium and told the congregation how proud she was to have been his daughter.

I thought that the finest tribute a child could to pay to a parent. "I am proud to be his daughter", she said.

From there, Nadine and I moved to talking about those people we have, or once had in our lives, who just the thought of them generates a smile. I immediately grinned as my Aunt Minnie's gap-toothed smile flashed before my eyes, and her raucous laugh sounded in my ear. That woman could tell a story. A letter from her was like reading a very good book.

I could see Aunt Mae, looking at me with those eyes so like my father's- her little brother. When I look in the mirror, I see her shape in my body. Her legs are now my legs. Sometimes, when I'm talking, I can hear her. Hattie "Mae" Kelly made cursing an art form. My aunt wasn't scared of much, and she was ALL woman.

Then there's my mother's maternal aunt, "Mice", and her husband, Joe Griffin. In conversations about him, Uncle Joe was always referred to by his full name, even by his wife. They had a love that defied explanation. They fought, cut each other, she shot him on more than one occasion, they cursed each other out on a regular, but not once in their decades of marriage and two dozen kids did they break up or separate. They hung right on in there, fussing and arguing and loving.

Aunt Mice suffered from diabetes, and it got to the place where the doctors were advising amputation, which she declined. She said she came with all her parts and she was leaving with them, even if they were damaged some. At least when it came time for inventory, "I can show 'em I still got 'em." She died playing cards and drinking Jack Daniels, all of her parts still attached. Uncle Joe cried like the abandoned soul he was at her funeral.

Then there was my grandmother, Big Mom, about whom I could write a book, a most hilarious, touching, and insightful book. Talk about a character. I was the abandoned soul when she slept away from us.

In all those people I see myself. Parts of them are me, and having known them helps me to better understand myself and why I do the things I do.

They were strong, very real people with flaws and problems, but also blessed with the capacity to leave strong impressions on someone who loved them. And who smiles when she thinks about them.

And who wonders if someone will smile when they think of her after she's gone....