One-year anniversary

My beloved Aunt Susie died a year ago this week, one week before her 92nd birthday on June 1. It's hard to imagine a world without her in it. That old house, with its deep shady front porch, is the scene of my happiest memories. She didn't have air conditioning (no one did), but we'd gather on the front porch. The adults would take the chairs. Some were rockers, some were just wooden straight chairs, some had cowhide seats that itched the backs of sweaty legs, some had wooden slat seats that tugged at clothing and left lines on the backs of legs and bottoms. The kids sat along the edge of the porch (no railings) and on the steps. We'd all talk and laugh and swap tall tales. The adults would smoke cigarettes.

I'm not a smoker and hate cigarette smoking with a passion, but I must confess, a story told with cigarette-suck pauses seems to have innately more drama. Sometimes my father would practice making smoke rings, but Mama was always better at it. Either way, whoever was telling a story would have the crowd leniency of taking long drags and expelling the smoke slowly, the better to heighten the drama.

The stories were usually family tales, exaggerated only slightly, but that was expected. We somehow knew to follow Emily Dickinson's advice: "Tell the truth, but tell it slant." (Maybe one reason The Liar's Club is such a great book to me is because Mary Karr understands that concept so well.) My father was a practical joker at heart and loved to tell "yarns" to see who would fall for it. He also loved to bestow nicknames on everyone. My tall skinny cousin was nicknamed "Fatso." My heavy cousin was "Skinflint." My beloved dearest cousin Mary was "Mary, Mary, Miss Contrary." (No one in the world is less contrary than Mary, whose sweet, patient disposition, optimistic nature, and devout loyalty and love to her family make her one of the world's best people.)

As I stood before the shiny box that held the remains of my Aunt Susie, I could not accept that she was dead. It was never supposed to happen. There have to be constants. There has to be something that won't change, that provides a center for the universe. I thought it was Aunt Susie. I miss her so much. S.