Passed On

My Great-Aunt B. passed away Monday night. She had a stroke about two weeks ago and was thought to be recuperating well and on the road to a full recovery. Instead, she stopped breathing mid-sentence while talking to her daughter and died. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. She was 83 years old. Aunt B. was one of those women who always seemed ageless. As a young woman, she was indefatigable and she carried her unflappable, can-do nature into later life. There was nothing she thought she couldn't do. I don't remember ever seeing her panic -- not when the burro kicked me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me. Not when lightning struck the house. Not even when my cousin wrecked her go-cart and limped back to the house so covered in blood that many people would have passed out at the sight. She always remained calm and unexcitable and, no matter what was going on, she never cursed, never flinched, never passed the buck.

I used to go spend weeks at a time at Aunt B.'s. My second cousin, her only child, was close to me in age, and we'd have a ball during our summers together. Truth be told, those summer respites were a lifesaver for me. I was scared of my father, and my mother made me nervous as well. Aunt B. had a completely different nature. She was ... maternal, simpatico with children. Understanding. And not so damned rigid. Summers there were like a buffer zone in which an inquisitive child could grow mentally and physically without fear of censure from those who had no comprehension of "growth."

Aunt B. drove a black 1949 Ford, and she still had that thing in the 60s when I was a kid. She'd drive my cousin and me to the store to buy sodas and candy, to the movies, to all the local events taking place. She'd take us downtown shopping, too. Downtown where they lived wasn't much to write home about, but Aunt B. would make us put on dresses, proper shoes and socks, and ... gloves. My mother was the same way. Going downtown meant dressing up and, with her, that included hats. Little girls all dressed up in hats and gloves to buy 29-cent bottles of "Evening in Paris" toilet water at the dimestore. It seems absurd in retrospect.

Aunt B. lived in the country, two counties over, about an hour's drive from home. She and her husband had a pretty substantial acreage, and they worked it. They grew crops, raised animals, produced their own eggs and milk. My cousin had a pet burro and her own horse. That's where I learned to ride. We loved playing with the calves and baby pigs, too. Aunt B. would send my cousin and me out first thing every morning to gather eggs, and I've been wary of live chickens ever since. They're loud, smelly, always hungry and squawking, and they peck you when you steal their eggs. I loved the baby chicks, though. They called them peeps. I think of that every time I scarf down a Peep. She'd fix us the freshly gathered eggs for breakfast, and then the rest of the day was ours.

I remember one night my cousin and I wanted to camp out, but we didn't want to do anything as pedestrian as sleeping on the actual ground. My uncle rigged us up a tent in the bed of his pickup truck and, as night settled in, we hunkered in for an adventurous evening of star gazing, girl talk, and gorging ourselves on junk food. I think it lasted about an hour before the night noises of the dark, dark country scared the crap out of us and we ran scurrying for the safety of the house.

My uncle died three years ago, but Aunt B. kept on going strong, continuing to do what she'd always done. Seeing her, you'd never guess she was much over 60. Even her hair was still mostly black, and she'd have been horrified at the thought of ever dying it. She was always such a strong woman, such a force, that the stroke was a surprise to everyone, and her death has sent shock waves throughout the family. It's going to be hard to imagine the world without Aunt B. in it.

TWISTED LINGUISTICS

lynchpin - The ultimate punishment when the crime is pinned on you.

frequebnts - Whatever this is, I'm sure it's freaky.

fruitation - A revolution in the land of fruit where the dissidents are crushed into pulp.

their icognitio-hood - The robbers wore hoodies so they wouldn't be recognized.

And, from our editor:

trhriller - Michael Jackson's new album, a real crhiller.


The phone rang after midnight last night. When the phone rings that late, your first thought tends to be, "Oh, hell, who's died now?" I answered and every time I said "hello," the woman on the other end would say, "Hello?" This went on for several rounds before she asked, "Who's this?" I said, "Who's THIS?" Her reply was, "Who IS this?" I asked her who she was calling and she said, "My friend. She go by Bam-Bam."

You'd think people would double-check the number they're calling if they're going to call that late. I don't know if she ever got hold of Bam-Bam. I don't care.