It was a boring Thursday night that I found
myself alone with the TV. I turned on the streaming internet feature to our
Roku device and selected the Facebook app. Why did I even bother since it didn’t
give me full access to Facebook features like a computer did? I clicked on the
photo albums of my brother in Michigan. Wow! He had many pictures of autumn
woods with trees in gold and orange; it looked like he was hiking. Then I
looked once again at his Christmas photos of my sister Camile. Double wow! Boy,
has she gained weight! She was dressed in a burgundy colored velvet pants suit
with pearls. Who dresses like that on Christmas day? Again I got that dreadful
feeling of being switched at birth. She prized those pearls since they came
from our grandmother who had worn them in her casket at the funeral home.
Just thinking about that gave me the willies!
Funerals bring families together whether the
relationships are close or whether everyone is happy to live a million miles
apart. Everyone gives the affectionate hugs, smiles, and cheerful greetings,
but sometimes it’s just a let-me-go-through-this-and-get-back-home motion. At
the viewing, there sat my rich uncle who made his money in the office supply
business, sold it to a Japanese company, and now lives in South Florida near a
golf course. He never communicates with any family, but there he was for his
mother, a visit too late. And there was Camile, cozying up to him on the front
bench. Birds of a feather, I thought.
After my grandmother’s funeral, Camile, my
brother Stan and I dropped off our brother Louis at the airport. We headed
straight for a restaurant with a bar in the Nashville area. Since I wanted to fit
in, I let my brother order a drink for me. He introduced me to the Cosmopolitan.
It tasted great. I sipped on this fruity concoction while listening to my
siblings on either side of me. The conversation soon took a turn for the worse as
I felt like I had paid admission to listen to the audio version of Fifty Shades of Grey. I felt as though I
were on a sinking ship. I sipped on my Cosmo in silence while my ears were assaulted
with lewd remarks. When Stan saw that I drained my glass, he promptly ordered
me another one which I gladly accepted. After time had lapsed, we figured it
was time to go back to the house that my mother and grandmother shared. I got
down from the bar stool and found that I had difficulty walking due to the 2
drinks my brother paid for.
“Just hang on to the back of my jacket,” he
told me. I did, thank God.
Once we were on the road to Monterey, the alcohol
took over. I belched loudly and laughed hysterically. My siblings looked at one
another and laughed at me. We came up with a motto, “What happens in Nashville
stays in Nashville”.
The next morning, the atmosphere was heavy with
grief again. Camile and my mother asked me to go through our grandmother’s
things to see if there was something to take home with me to remember her by.
Grandmother and I were about the same size. She
had visited me twice in the Florida Panhandle. I loaned her my peach colored
tank and shorts set to go to the beach in Destin. At 82 years old she still had
some auburn color in her hair. I took pictures of her standing in the surf of
the emerald colored Gulf of Mexico. One photo had her foot in it with brightly
colored toe nails. I will always remember that she called me her “little
country singer”. She taught me how to play the guitar. My first song was “The
Crawdad Song” (You Get a Line and I’ll Get a Pole). She was the one who held
our family together when there was an emergency. I even remember when she
picked me up from school when I was very young. She had worn dark sunglasses
which changed her appearance, like a spy on a mission. Since I didn’t recognize
her, I didn’t get in the car. She had to coax me. I chuckled about that through
the years.
The day after the funeral, Camile approached me
with the pearls that my grandmother wore in her casket at the viewing. I shook
my head and refused them. Camile must have thought, more for me.
I stood
there at my grandmother’s closet and remember smelling her clothes. She had
good taste in fashion: not too fancy and not too dressed down. Some of her
tastes leaned toward tropical since she wintered in Florida for many years.
There was a skirt set in a deep blue tropical leaf print with a dragonfly
brooch on it. I grabbed it from the closet. The brooch was a pave style with
clear crystals. A large crystal was the “head” while the curved body was in a
polished silver tone. It probably came from Avon, but I thought I struck gold.
Years down the road I discovered that my
grandmother’s dragonfly brooch was captured in a photo when she posed with my
mother in the living room after a day at church. If Camile could see this, she
would be so envious! Now it is the secret that I keep: a piece of jewelry of my
grandma’s that is captured in time, jewelry that captures the essence of what
she loved and who she was. My sister will most likely never know since we have
drifted further apart through the years. The brooch rests in my jewelry box
while my memories of my grandmother at the beach are visited in my mind.
