family ties
04/09/2006 05:31 p.m.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who thought her aunt was the bestest best thing in the whole enire world. All of this little girl's best memories involved her aunt - three layers of thick socks so the little girl could fit ice skates ten sizes too big to go skate the frozen over crick, playing hide and seek with her aunt's horse (not to mention learning to ride on that same horse with her aunt's help), teepees built of dead branches and leaves, climbing trees and eating wild grapes and pin cherries, forts built in haymows - there was always something fun and interesting.

Home wasn't nearly so fun. At home there was a stout bar broken off of a (her?) baby crib for when she and/or her brother(s) were bad. Friday nights were full of her mother yelling at her dad about 'drunk'. Home was about hiding and being 'good' and learning to stay unnoticed. Understandably, she used to beg her parents to let her stay with her aunt. Sometimes they did and she was happy, sometimes they didn't and she cried. Her aunt was the only person she loved with all her heart and no reservations.

Everything changes eventually.

Her aunt grew up. Firm avowals of never getting married turned to discussions about weddings and she told the little girl that she would be her flower girl. The little girl still begged to go to grandma's but her mother didn't let her go as often as she used to and her aunt was out on dates with boys more often than not. The last day she waited, her aunt came home around 11pm after going to the movies to see the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The little girl was still faithfully waiting up. Her aunt said, "oh, I would've come home earlier if I had known you were here," gave her a hug, then the little girl went to bed and had to go home the next morning. The little girl was sad but she never said anything because there was nobody to say anything to.

Then her aunt got married. She was beautiful in a white gown with a lacy wide brimmed sun hat atop her golden hair. When her mother took her into the bathroom where everyone else was completing last minute touches on their outfits for a picture of her with her aunt, the little girl smiled nicely. She kept smiling nicely the whole time she was in the bathroom. She couldn't help a few tears that leaked out during the ceremony as she sat with the rest of her family in the seating reserved for them but that was okay since nobody pays attention to little girls at weddings, everyone is watching the bride and her bridesmaids...and the flower girl who wasn't her. Nobody told her why her aunt had broken her promise. She never said anything to her aunt. She certainly never said anything to her mother. She went out into the park at the reception area and found a place where she cried until she couldn't cry any more, then stayed outside until nobody noticed. Not that they would have anyway.

After the wedding, her aunt took her once to the house they were renting, it wasn't far from her old home. Then they moved 20 miles away and rarely came around. Her aunt got pregnant and eventually had six kids of her own. Two or three times she came and asked the now not-so-little girl to babysit. She did. While she babysat she cleaned things up. Her aunt paid her in money, which the girl accepted although it was not what she had ever wanted. If she had a way, the girl would've come babysit and cleaned for free every day just to be around her aunt.

But her aunt wasn't who she used to be. Now when the girl saw her (primarily at weddings and funerals), she was full of stories about who done her wrong and who she was currently feuding with. The only thing she ever wanted to know about the girl was whether she had a boyfriend yet. Her stories were funny, she had a natural talent for tale telling but the conversations were always about her and she never left the girl an opening to tell her anything important. She could've taught a sailor a thing or two about swearing and most of her words were ugly and hurtful. Silences that should've stayed empty were filled with jagged words.

Her husband insisted she be called by her christian name because nicknames were disrespectful. This was hard for the girl at first but after so many times of leaving the building to mourn the disappearance of the aunt she had loved, the girl decided her aunt's proper name better fit the contentious, contankerous person she had become. It became much easier to use her 'real' name when she thought of her dearly beloved aunt as being dead.

The majority of her kids grew up to be white trash. One accepted a scholarship for thousands of dollars, spent it and didn't attend the college. Neither of the eldest sons have been married but they have several children between them by different mothers. After my mother spoke the truth regarding one of their sisters, one called up and left a message on the answering machine that started out with "Hey, you Iraqis!" and continued with a great many uncomplimentary things said with a great deal of swearing punctuating it. The girls came to my sister's grad party dressed like sluts with their boobs nearly hanging out of their shirts and also swear like sailors. They all drink like fish and have thrown parties where alcohol flowed freely to minors (some of whom were their own younger sibs).

Once upon a time, i wished my aunt had been my mother. Now i can only be glad she wasn't and mourn the death of (an imaginary?) someone i once loved.