caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- visiting the past Visiting my great-aunt Nell and her daughter Shirl in Alabama, 10/20/03: Shirl answers the door to their suburban ranch house. No Tara here, or shack in the hills. My first impression is that there�s something wrong with her face, but I later learn that it's only that she hasn�t yet �put on her face� and so is suffering from a severe lack of eyebrow. Where her eyebrows should be are two glowy-white slashes where all the hair has been severely plucked out. To my right is an excruciatingly formal dining room. To my left is the living room, which looks entirely unlived-in, aside from the frighteningly realistic stuffed dogs and cats posed carefully on the armchair, the window ledge, and under the coffee table. There are 11X14 portraits on the walls: Shirl�s high school graduation picture, cousin Bubby�s Air Force portrait, a formal sitting of Nell from the 1950�s with hair almost higher than the picture frame, Shirl�s two boys as babies. And Shirl�s Glamour Shot picture, incongruously colorful. We are led out to the deck where it�s �more comf'table� and offered sweet tea. There�s an elephant ear plant with leaves as big across as I am tall, something that we�d never see up north, and it is greatly admired. Nell and Grandma catch up on family and health and the ridiculous cost of prescriptions, while Shirl exclaims over how good Mom and Auntie P look, �jus� like when y�all useta come down� and how amazing it is that I�ve actually aged in the past 28 years. Mom shows off her grandkid photo album, and Nell turns pages exclaiming �in�t that somethin�!� and �wayl, how �bout that!� every now and then, and I feel myself melting into the lounge chair, lulled by the sun and the breeze and the sweet syrupy voices around me. Shirl goes in and starts a meatloaf and a blueberry cobbler, leaving careful instructions for her 86-year-old mother on what to do to finish up while she takes us out to the cemetery. We drive through a landscape littered with kudzu vines and aging single-wides to an old Baptist church out in the middle of nowhere, where my great-grandfather is buried along his brothers and sisters and several of his children, including Cousin Frank who died in the Second World War and has his portrait etched on his tombstone, and a little girl who didn�t live long enough to be named. The graveyard is full of the tragedies of rural Southern life in the early part of the last century: the 2-day-old twin babies buried next to their mother, who died a month later; the family that buried a baby a year for six years; my great-great-aunt, who moved in with her brother when his wife died and left him with seven children, from 6 months to 13 years, and spent her life devoted to a family that was never quite hers. Some of the graves are those of Confederate soldiers, with name and rank proudly displayed; some are so worn as to be unreadable, and some are blank stones. I take pictures. We return to discover that to Shirl�s horror, Nell has forgotten to make the salad; otherwise everything is bubbling along and we sit down to dinner. Not in the dining room, of course, but in the breakfast nook, which is furnished with two recliners and a tv set. Shirl and Nell eat here on tv trays while they watch their �programs.� We line up at the bar like little kids at Thanksgiving and eat our meatloaf with mashed potatoes and cream corn and store-bought rolls. Store-bought rolls aren�t as good as homemade cornbread, of course, but Shirl cain�t hardly manage that anymore and store-bought�s so easy. We sit and talk in their makeshift family room, Mom recalling how Nell used to rap her knuckles and call her �girl� during her piano lessons. Nell can�t play anymore, and Shirl, since her stroke, can�t remember how. Nell�s surviving son Bubby (the youngest was killed at 18 in a motorcycle accident) is in his 60s now and has decided to go back to school �fer art� for reasons incomprehensible to them. I get what names and dates I can for the family genealogy while Shirl and Nell fuss at each other over who remembers what. In the end they want us to stay longer, to listen to �that handsome man� who preaches on the tv at 8, but Grandma is tired from walking the cemetery and wants to get back to the hotel; she's in bed every night by 8:30. Shirl informs us that�s she�s taking Nell to �the Wal-Mart store� tomorrow, and if we�d like to come along we�re more than welcome; it�s one of the biggest Wal-Marts in the state and sometimes Shirl gets lost in it, but it sure is a nice store and the people there are so friendly and helpful, not like the K-Mart down the road. Nell tells me what a pretty smile I have and how glad she is to see me all growd up, and we head back to the hotel and the 21st century. The next day involves a visit to Uncle Turner and his turnip patch, but that�s another story. 2:08 p.m. - October 24, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||