Big Tough Love

 

               A few of the Alewine 11 - Carol, Stevie, Claudette, David, Ann (my mom) & Danny

My Aunt Carol loved bold and loud.  She did not whisper her feelings to the people she loved.  She did not give sweet kisses and soft hugs.  She pushed and shoved her way through life, dragging the people she cared about along for the ride.  Aunt Carol passed away this week.  She was 88 years old and a perfect example of big, tough love. 

The second oldest of the 11 children born to Fletcher and Dolly Alewine during the hard times of the 1930’s, she had no time for whining, spoiled children.  Aunt Carol was tough love at its finest. 

Aunt Carol yelled at all of us kids, made us do chores along with her kids when we visited and didn’t think a thing of swatting us with a fly swatter if we messed up or making us go outside to play if we had been inside bugging her too long.

That did not stop me from wanting to go spend time with my cousins in the summer.  Especially when it was Bunko night.  Aunt Carol would spend hours making mountains of snacks and setting up card tables for her Bunko group. My cousin, Sandra, and I would peep around the corner watching the ladies with their bouffant hairdos as they popped Juicy Fruit gum and held long thin cigarettes in their Revlon Red nail polished fingers.  They were supposed to be there to play Bunko, but I'm pretty sure they mainly came to gossip and eat snacks.  Every now and then, we would hear one of them scream with delight when they won a trinket from the prize basket.  The best part of the night was when all the ladies went home and we got the leftover cookies, chips and dip and other homemade goodies. She always had the best stocked pantry I had ever seen.  

Carol was my mama’s best friend.  There was rarely an event where my mama was that Aunt Carol was not beside her.  She was the Laurel to my mother's Hardy; the mac to her cheese.  Inseparable.  They finished each other's sentences.  Laughed at the same jokes.   Mama said she and her sister were very different but exactly the same in ways that really matter.  I get that.  It’s a sister thing.

When my sister was in the hospital and there was no hope of her getting better, I stood on one side of her bed and my mother and Carol stood on the other.  I took my sisters hand and told her that it was ok for her to go.  I would take care of her children.  I would make sure her daughter had a beautiful wedding and that her son got a good education. I would be there when she could not.

Aunt Carol reached across that bed, took my hand and said, “Mart, it is going to be ok.”  No tears.  No big hugs.  No dramatic speech.   Just a hand on mine and a simple message.  Everything will be ok.

But things were not ok.  My sister died.  For exactly one year I was furious with God.  I had prayed for my sister like I had never prayed before.  I had made deals with God.  I would stop cussing if God would heal my sister.  I would never miss church if he would let my sister live.  God lied to me. I remembered from Sunday School, ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find.   God did not hold up his end of the deal.  For a year, I would not speak to God.  I did not pray.  Things were never going to be ok.  My Aunt Carol was wrong.

For a whole year, I turned my face away from God. I was furious.  But, God is a big God.  He can take our anger, our frustration, our HUMANESS.   Slowly, so slowly, I began to see that my sister’s death was not something that God did TO ME.  My little sister’s life was between her and God.  How I reacted to the loss of my sister was between ME and God.  I realized that I had been ungrateful for the sister I was given.  I had not been thankful for the 38 years we shared on this earth.  I started to realize what a tremendous blessing she was to me.  How I am who I am because I grew up with her.  My sister left me her amazing children who are MY children.  The world is definitely a better place because she was here.

Everything was going to be ok, just like Aunt Carol promised me, because God’s plan is always ok.  Better than ok.  Perfect.  So many times, we do not see the perfection in the plan and that lesson is always so hard to learn, but Aunt Carol knew.  She knew because she had lived with loss and heartache.  She knew because she knew God’s plan is not always what we think we want or expect.  She told me because she loved me.  My aunt loved me not only big and loud but also with a very simple message on one of the worst days of my life:  It is going to be ok.

On a hot summer day many years later, I went with my mother and Carol to see my grandmother. She and I were in the kitchen and I asked her, “Do you remember telling me that everything was going to be ok when Gail died?  It took me a very long time, but I finally understand what you meant.”

With a very rare tear in her eye, she said, “I always knew that you would.”

The loss of my Aunt Carol is profound.  I can think of so many things we will miss about her.  Her yelling at the TV during Ole Miss sports, her love for the Memphis Grizzlies, her daily phone calls to my mother, her always telling mama to tell me that she loved me.  All the things that made her who she was to each of us. She loved God, her family, Ole Miss, tomato sandwiches, watermelon, and her soaps. She loved me loud and clear.

I want to say to Uncle Robert, Aunt Carol’s husband of almost 70 years, and to my cousins, Bobby, Sandra and Pam.  It is going to be ok.  Maybe you don’t understand.  Maybe you are angry.  Maybe you feel like God has left you or forsaken you.  But it is going to be ok.  God’s perfect plan is, well, it’s perfect.  Even in loss, it is perfect.

Everything will be ok. My Aunt Carol told me so.

Wednesday Chores

 

Little white puffs of richly scented vapor float up to the ceiling as the iron sizzles across my daddy’s frozen shirts.  My mama goes back and forth to the Frigidaire pulling one extra-large white cotton shirt after another out of the freezer, sprinkles them with water from a soda bottle and uses her heavy iron to flatten out the wrinkled rough cotton resulting in a smooth warm shine.

It is Wednesday – ironing day – on a hot summer afternoon at our house.  The steam from the iron smells clean, the real kind of clean, the clean that comes from Duz washing powder and hot water and hanging for mere minutes on the clothes line in the blistering Mississippi summer heat.  We drink orange juice every morning from tiny juice glasses etched in a 22k gold wheat pattern that come free in every box of Duz. We have a complete set.

I am lying down for an afternoon nap with my little sister and baby brother.  I’m 5 years old, much too old for a nap, but mama says I have to rest with my siblings so that they will nap.  If I am real still and quiet, I can get up and color or play Barbies while the younger kids sleep.  I am in the middle. The cream of the Oreo, with my baby brother’s crib pushed up next to the bed that I share with my little sister.  Andy is sprawled out across his crib in only a diaper, his chubby cheeks slightly pink from the heat.  I am holding his hand through the bars of the crib, which I do every night to keep him from fussing before he finally drops off to sleep a few hours before he is wide awake again, ready for a bottle and a diaper change. 

My little sister, Gail, is on the other side, face turned away from me, with her thick blond curls spilling over her pillow and onto mine. She talks a lot, even in her sleep, and she laughs out loud in her dreams. I count the buttons down the back of her favorite top, slightly touching each button and starting all over when I get to the bottom. The buttons are pearly and tiny and she needs help getting into the blouse she wants to wear every day.  I count the buttons until I get to 20, then I look toward the foot of the bed at mama to see if I can get up now.

I see my mama dressed in petal pushers and a sleeveless blouse much like Gail's. She absent-mindedly licks her finger and quickly touches the iron to make sure it is still hot enough. The transistor radio sits on top of the chest of drawers, watching as my mama softly sings along with Johnny Cash’s big, gravelly voice. Ring of Fire.

 She goes about her work quickly, efficiently, like she does everything, occasionally glancing over at us checking to see how much more quiet time she has before we are awake and she will have arguments to negotiate, boo boos to kiss and supper to finish

I hear her flip flops as she hurries from bedroom to kitchen to get another shirt and check on the pot of pinto beans that have been cooking since early morning.  Wednesday – it is not only ironing day, but also fried chicken, pinto beans and mashed potatoes-for-supper day.  Wednesdays are busy for her, but she smiles at secret thoughts I know nothing about and sings and pops her Double Mint gum and she is happy.

We are all in the same room on this summer day because our room – the one I share with my sister and my baby brother – is the only room with an air conditioner.  It’s a window unit that cools our bedroom and my mama and daddy’s room across the hall.  We have air conditioning because doctors assure my parents that the cool air will help my asthmatic sister breathe better.  It does.

I don’t know why this hot summer day climbs to the top of the mountain of my memories so often and so clearly.  Maybe because on this day, I thought my baby brother would always reach out for me when he needed comforting.  I thought my sister would always breathe easy and sleep peacefully.  That my mother would be secure in the knowledge that her children are all safe and within arm's reach of her.  I thought my daddy would always be walking through the door in crisp white shirts ironed with love by his wife.  I believed all Wednesdays would bring chores and fried chicken. That mamas always sang while they ironed and smelled of minty gum and Evening in Paris perfume.  I thought that if I was still and quiet, my brother and sister would always be beside me and I could get up and play and know that they would be joining me shortly.

I have learned that summers end.  Children grow up.  Move away.  Live their lives.  Face their demons and sometimes lose their battles. Daddys don’t always walk through doors at the end of the day and mamas don’t forever feel safe and secure.  I now know that every minute in time is unique, singular and precious. 

Just like the wheat pattern that is etched into those little Duz juice glasses, this day – this ordinary summer day  -  will be etched into my memories forever. 

Unique, singular and precious.

 

 

A Life Remembered in Greeting Cards

There are more than 7 billion greeting cards sold each year in this country.  I found 6.9 billion in boxes under my mother’s bed just last weekend.

It all started when my mother needed a new roof on her house.  That led to repairing the leaky spots inside her house, which led to the painting of said repairs, which led to the near demolition of the interior of her home, which led to me having to put it all back together and finding thousands of keepsakes and what-the-heck-is-this things all over my old childhood home on Camille Street in Senatobia, MS.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m as sentimental as the next gal, but my mother has kept every scrap of paper I’ve ever written on and every shoulder pad I ever wore.  Multiply that by 4 Hudspeth kids’ keepsakes and you will see the perfect picture of my mother’s hoard…I mean, house.

What started out as a simple new roof has turned in to weekends of mediation between my mother and me, with my brother sometimes acting as a mediator. 

It usually goes something like this:

Me:  Mama, do we have to keep these green Liz Claiborne pumps? I wore these when I worked at Hernando Bank in the 1980’s.    

Her:  YES!  They MIGHT come back in style.

Me:  Why are you holding on to this empty Vick’s Vapor Rub jar?

Her:  That was the last Vick’s my daddy ever used!  You know he always kept Vick’s salve by his bed.

Oh, ok.  I guess that makes sense…In my mother’s world.

Her:  What did you just put in that garbage bag?

Me:  Nothing…. 

Strangely enough, the “nothing” in the garbage bag often finds its way back into the house. 

One of the reasons it has taken so long to get everything cleaned up and put back together is because both of us get caught up in the memories tucked away under beds, in underwear drawers, behind what-nots and stuffed in closets that haven’t been opened in years.  Every single scrap of paper, picture, stuffed animal, and do-dad has a history and a story to tell. 

Especially the greeting cards she hangs on to.  Each one chosen with just the perfect touch of corny – some funny, some sentimental.  They are from friends and family for all occasions – birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day.  There are boxes of sympathy cards sent to my parents when my sister passed away and again when my brother passed away.   All she has carefully dated and cataloged.  I have called her several times this week and found her re-reading some of her cards.  They bring her such joy mixed with a little sadness.  Her favorite ones are from her children and grandchildren.

From my brother, Andy, to my mother for Mother’s Day:  Thank you for all that you do for me.  Can you keep Heather this week? (My sister-in-law, Ann, always put pictures with the cards they sent)

From my brother, Jeff, to my mother on Valentine’s Day:  I love you, Mom. You mean so much to me.

From my sister, Gail, on her birthday:  Love always, Gail, Buster, April and Brandon

And, of course, the ones from me.

In 1972 at the age of 15, I wrote:  “Mama, I know we don’t get along too good, but I love you anyway. XOX.”

In 1979 at the age of 22, I wrote:  “Mother, we don’t always see eye-to-eye, but I do love you.”

In 1992 at the age of 35, I wrote:  “Mom, you are my best friend and I will love you always.”

Maybe greeting cards allow us to express ourselves in a way we would not do in person, but today I want to make sure I am not just sticking a card into an envelope for my mother’s birthday.  How many times have I run into Walgreens and picked up some random card without even really reading the message.  I want the message I send to my mother to be spoken and not read; to be handed out in hugs and not envelopes.  To be held in her heart for safe keeping and not just in boxes under her bed. 

I love that my mother has a little Hallmark history of our family in the form of cards and notes.  Each card forming a patchwork quilt of expressions of love and appreciation for my mother from her family. I love that she took the time to date each card and that she cannot bear to part with them.  I love that she has a continuing love affair with the written word. 

My mama and I are so very different...And so much alike.  The proof is in the cards.

Cousin Love

I am No. 6 of my grandmother’s 20 grandchildren.  She is No. 20, the runt of the litter.

She is as hard headed as she is tender hearted.  Her dark hair fames an angelic face with her dad’s full lips, her mom’s porcelain skin and eyes that sparkle blue when she laughs and deepen to blue/ green when she is daydreaming.

She does a lot of daydreaming.  

At first glance, she seems exotic. A wisp of a girl, so naturally beautiful she seems otherworldly.    Her molasses-rich drawl reveals southern roots as deep as the Mighty Mississippi.  Her dream car is a big black pick-up truck.  The epitome of a Mississippi girl.

She is fiercely loyal, slow to anger, forgiving, humble.  A true, blue daddy’s girl as only southern girls can be.

My baby cousin, Summer.

In a huge North Mississippi family of Alewine grandchildren, Summer is the baby of my grandmother’s baby boy.   While the rest of us Alewine cousins were named solid baby boomer names like Martha, Pam, Jeff, Gail, Rhonda, Dianne, and Sandra,  Summer was named, well, Summer. 

Her name describes her perfectly.  She is warm, loving, breezy.  She is drawn to the lost, mistreated, and misunderstood. She is forever “collecting” people she believes need saving.  She offers her ear, her heart and her home to anyone who needs it.

She is a shining light in a troubled world.

Summer doesn’t just talk about Jesus to anyone who will listen. She shows them who he is. 

The Alewine people are a rowdy outgoing, family of folks who love to spin a good tale, laugh and have a good time. Summer is different.   A true introvert in a huge family of extroverts, Summer loves spending time with her dogs, close family and a few special friends.  She is quiet and guarded.  She will tell you she is blessed.

Even the most blessed of God’s children do not escape the ugliness of life on this earth.

On a cold winter night in February 2009, Summer lost her precious mother in a car wreck. 

I remember that dark day. I grew up with my Uncle Stevie and love him like a brother, but I barely knew this young cousin of mine.  I did not know what to say to this damaged girl who had just lost her mother.  I sat outside her bedroom and prayed for the right words to say.  I asked God to use me to comfort her in some way.

Her door never opened; I did not find the words.  I left my uncle’s home without even seeing her that day.

I prayed.   God had a plan. 

While I was praying for her and seeking God’s plan for her, she was challenging me with Biblical questions that I would have to research in order to answer.  This girl makes me think.

While I was convincing her that she is strong and resilient and independent, she was showing me how to find joy in the simple things in life – a new puppy, a playful child, an old time gospel singing.

While I searched for the perfect Christmas gifts for her in a multitude of stores and websites, she quietly gave me the most precious gifts…. Things of her mother’s that she knew I would love.  Arthur Court serving trays, a precious handmade canister set, a wall clock that is perfect for my home.  Things that mean something to her that she wanted to share with me. Priceless gifts from her heart.

We talk about the simple things of life, her job, her daddy and my mama, our shared love for our family.  One minute we may be discussing the pros and cons of vitamin supplements and the next we could be talking about the meaning of life.  Many times, our messages back and forth go on for hours; some days we just say hello.  We rarely ever go a day without connecting in some way.

Sometimes there are tears, but there is always laughter.

On that tragic day in 2009, this heartbroken girl captured my heart.  She continues to teach me so much about life, loss, joy, and family.  

Even though she has shown me things I could no longer see, I watch her searching for answers, for truth, for the way back from the darkness.

She may not be able to see her light just yet, but I see it shining brightly in the lives of the children she keeps at daycare and their parents she invites to church.  In the lives of people who need a meal, a bed or just a pat on the back. In the eyes of her beloved daddy.

And, in the life of an older cousin who loves her like a sister, prays for her like a mother and is blessed to be with her on this lighted path we call life.

Matthew 5:16

My Hero Wore Fur

Not all super heroes wear a cape. Mine wore a mink coat.

First grade Christmas party.  My mother, then 22 years old, brought snow white cupcakes with red sprinkles to a room full of rowdy ready-for-Santa first graders on the last day before Christmas break in 1964.  She looked like she stepped off the pages of Teen Magazine dressed in pink stirrup pants, fluffy sweater, gold sparkly shoes and a mink coat.

Actually, she wore a mouton coat, but in the eyes of these first graders, it was a mink coat.  Like the one Marilyn Monroe wore when she surprised the world and up and married old Joltin’ Joe.

My friends asked me if she was a movie star.  Simple answer:  How could she be a movie star when she’s my mama?

She was 16 years old when I was born.  Just 10 months and 13 days after she married my daddy.  Standing in front of a justice of the peace in a gray suit borrowed from her sister, my mother was a child bride.  I have pictures of me as a baby with my teenage mother’s favorite doll, Annie Oakley.  My daddy gave her that doll… and me.  They went on to have 4 more children and Annie Oakley was forgotten somewhere along the way.

Standing just north of 5 ft. tall, mama was not like all the other mothers.  She was pretty with her dark curly hair, perfect complexion and twinkling eyes. She painted her lips in Avon Red Velvet and always smelled like Evening in Paris perfume.  On Saturdays, we watched American Bandstand and sang and danced around the living room with Dick Clark and the American Bandstand Dancers.  When it came time for my daddy to get home from work, she washed our faces and combed our hair and stood at the window waiting for him to drive up.   He came home to her every single day for 55 years.

Super heroes do cry sometimes.   My mama has lost 3 of her 5 children and 7 of her 11 siblings.  Her beloved husband passed away suddenly six years ago.  She doesn’t laugh as much and her brown eyes are a little less bright.

American Bandstand has been replaced with The Young and the Restless as must-see-TV and her glamorous mouton coat is in storage at my house.  The last bottle of Evening in Paris that my daddy gave her sits on my dresser, empty now.  I still occasionally take the top off just to get a whiff of my childhood.

My mama is no less a hero today than she was that day she made her 6 year old daughter the envy of all the other first graders.  She is still beautiful with dark curly hair, a perfect complexion and, yes, sometimes Red Velvet lips.

 

 

Lessons on Black Leather

He was clad in typical motorcycle garb – black leather vest, leather chaps, motorcycle boots, dew rag hanging out of his helmet, hugging a big black Harley.  A rugged, bear of a man.

Stopping next to him at the red light gave me an opportunity to critique him like a New York Times book reviewer.  My southern mama’s mind went to work immediately.  That is nothing but trouble. 

Then I saw him.  Riding shotgun was a miniature replica of Mr. Motorcycle Dude.  Little black leather vest, a red, white and blue bandana tired around his neck.  I could see shiny brown eyes peeping from underneath wind-blown silver and brown hair. A tiny pink tongue darted in and out to the rhythm of the distinct rattle of the V-twin engine.  Seeming to grin from ear to ear, the little Yorkshire terrier was sitting pretty in a rigged up safety seat built especially for him.   Four or five pounds of best friend. 

Puppy dogs and babies soften even the hardest shell of a person.

Why do we judge people on how they look?  How they dress?  Even what they drive?

On second glance, maybe he is a doctor who cares for terminally ill patients every day except Friday’s when he rides his Harley through the back streets of DeSoto County to unwind.

Maybe he is a fireman who worked most of the night putting his own life in danger to save someone else’s family and is headed out of the city for a break.

Maybe he is a teacher who gets through to the ignored, abused, forgotten children of our world because they can relate to him.

Maybe he is the butcher, the baker or candle stick maker.  He is someone’s son, dad, husband, friend.   

Whatever he does or whatever he drives or however he is dressed does not determine who he is.  Except when he is stopped at a red light next to a somewhat set-in-her-ways, self-proclaimed southern belle with a really hard shell who is learning new lessons on humanity.  (Matthews 7:1)

Every.  Single.  Day.    

This I know to be true:    Anyone who takes his Yorkie for a ride on his Fat Boy on a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon is a hero in my book. 

Birthday Special

A purple balloon floated out in front of my car this morning on my drive to work.  Bright and shiny and new.  Announcing the beginning of a birthday week for some lucky child, I’m sure.  Probably that little blond haired girl who lives just beyond the curve at Pine Tree Loop near my house.

Birthdays now a days are big business.  Inflatable bouncies, gourmet cupcakes, gift bags filled with goodies to take home, limo rides to the newest arcade or overpriced pizza place. 

Mothers have to be creative and come up with “special” and “different” ways to celebrate their little one’s birthday.  Kids surely don’t want their special day to be less fun than their friends’ parties. Birthday parties are a very big deal.

That stray balloon made me think of my sixth birthday party.  My mother baked a cake decorated with six pink candles and sugar sprinkles.  My little sister, who was four at the time, and I patiently waited for my daddy to come home so we could have my party.  After supper, my mother sat the cake and us in the middle of the table and let my sister and I blow out the candles while they sang happy birthday to me.  She took pictures of  both of us sitting on the table, arm-in-arm, blowing out my candles and fussing over whose wish would be granted. I felt special and loved because I was the center of attention – rare for the oldest child. 

That was the same year we moved to Camille Street in Senatobia, MS.  Camille was a street filled with kids of all ages where all birthdays were celebrated with a cake, ice cream and Kool-Aid for every kid on the street who came by.  We might get a coloring book or an army man or a can of PlayDoh, but the main treat was always the birthday cake. The best part of any birthday party in the 1960’s was the cake that our moms made.  For one day during the year, the birthday kid was the most special of the Camille Street gang. 

As I got older, my parties became more elaborate.  For my 13^th birthday, I had a sleep-over at my grandmother’s house in a little country Mississippi town called Strayhorn, about 10 miles west of Senatobia.   We went to my grandmother’s house partly to get away from my sister and brothers and partly because her house was big enough to accommodate a bunch of squealing junior high girls.  Mainly we went there because my grandmother was way cooler than anybody else’s grandmother and she let me have a sleep-over.

The old house was a creepy, Victorian that was the perfect party setting for a bunch of giggling, dramatic girls. We ate all the chips and hot dogs we could hold before my grandmother brought out the cake - a gigantic store bought birthday cake with 13 candles gloriously announcing that I was finally a teenager.   

We listened to Mr. Bo Jangles (the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version) over and over again on my new record player singing every word at the top of our voices.  We talked about boys we liked and girls we didn’t.  We talked about freezing a girl’s bra and hanging it on the light fixture or putting her hands in cold water to make her pee her pants if she dared go to sleep.

The last thing you would ever want to do at a sleepover was to go to sleep.  So, right about the time we were starting to get a little sleepy, someone - I cannot remember who – came up with a brilliant idea to keep us awake.   “Why don’t we try to raise someone from the dead?”   

Sure, why not…

We didn’t have a dead person handy, so we had to convince one of the girls that she was dead in order to raise her up.  (We had a volunteer and I won’t mention any names here because she is now perfectly alive, living a very normal life with her family.)

So, we laid out our friend in the middle of the parlor floor and proceeded to convince her that she was, in fact, dead.  In the midnight darkness the drafty old house whispered and taunted us with its creaks and groans as we gathered around the victim and commenced her “wake.”

In high pitched, dramatic voices that only 13 year old girls can muster, we went around the circle saying,   “She looks dead.”  “She feels dead”  “She acts dead”  “She IS dead!” 

And, by golly, within just a few minutes that sweet girl was good and dead.  We had to get to work raising her up.

We all gathered around our dead friend and “laid hands” on her.  We were all straight laced Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians who had never laid hands on anyone without getting in trouble, but we had work to do. We called her forth.

“She doesn’t look dead.”  “She doesn’t feel dead.”  “She doesn’t act dead.”  “She’s not dead!”

“Rise!” we all shouted in unison.

Slowly, our dead girl started making ‘coming alive” sounds, shaking and groaning, her arms lifting up like Frankenstein.  She was coming to life!  We had convinced her she was dead and raised her up within a matter of just a few minutes.  Slowly she opened her eyes, whispering, “What happened?”  She was dizzy, weak…and, yes, yawning.  Being dead is hard on a person.

I don’t think any of us had ever been so scared in our lives. Shaking and crying (remember DRAMATIC 13 year olds), we woke up my grandmother and told her the whole story.  My grandmother – who was a special, amazing and funny woman – chastised us severely and told us to NEVER kill and raise from the dead anyone else again.  Raising folks from the dead is not your business, she told us.  She was right.

None of us went to sleep that night, not even my grandmother.  The next morning, in the light of day with biscuits baking in the oven and bacon frying in the black skillet, we were much calmer, even a little subdued.  Nobody got their bra frozen and nobody’s hands were plunged into cold water, but we sure made some memories that night that would last a lifetime for some of us. 

For the next several weeks, my birthday party was all the talk at Senatobia Junior High. Everyone wanted to be my friend and come to my next party.  Those who were there told the story so much, it had morphed into a pretty scary episode of the Twilight Zone.  I felt so special.

The next year we were all turning 14.   We were hosting boy/girl parties, kissing boys and going to the movies. We had much more exciting things to do with our time than raise a friend from the dead.

Over the years, some of us have talked about what a fun party that was. No limo rides, just carpooling to Strayhorn with our moms; no live DJ, just Mr. Bo Jangles on the record player; no high tech pizza/arcade, just hot dogs and chips. We didn’t go back with a sack full of goodies; we went home with a sack full of memories.  Oh, but how delightfully scared we were!  What trouble we could have gotten ourselves into!!   The power of suggestion is a mighty thing to a group of 13-year-old girls. 

The purple balloon followed me a ways down Robertson Rd. and when I last looked in my rearview mirror, it was floating back towards the home of the birthday girl.  My birthday wish for that child is that she makes the kind of memories that I have.   Of simple birthday parties with lifelong friends. Of fun times that require some imagination and little else. Of giggles and laughter and silliness.  And, maybe even a little fear.  Of a cherished grandmother. Of sugary birthday cakes and bright, shiny purple balloons.

Most of all, I pray that she always feels special.  Birthday special.