Auntie And Unk
Something about gray days and old books led me to think about Auntie and Unk, my childless great-uncle and -aunt.
He was short, skinny, eagle-beaked, and mild-tempered. She was short, dumpling-like, sharp-eyed, and scorchingly blunt. They both always appeared to be about 70 years old. They lived in a small house in Petersburg, TN, an unincorporated town of 250 people not far from our farm, which they rented to my family.
When my youngest brother, Josh, was being born, it was a blizzard January. Because I and my other brother, Jeremy, fought all the time, he stayed with my grandparents and I stayed with Auntie and Unk.
I asked for a set of crayons. They smiled and let me alone to color. Which I did. The entire hall wall as far as I could reach: many-colored tumbleweed. Begging, then, to be re-painted. She split her eyes on me and gave me a long piece of her mind. He watched and blinked.
Their compact, many-cornered house always smelled of yellowing paper and over-worked heaters. Later, Unk took me up to the attic -- which I had never known existed. He let me rummage through a huge pile of old National Geographics and looked pleased when I showed interest in a decrepit copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In that claustrophobic attic, I went to other places and other times.
I grew up Church of Christ. (Ack!!) When I graduated from high school, it was assumed I would go to the Nashville Church of Christ college, David Lipscomb. Already having denied the "church" in my gut and chest, I had worked very hard to find scholarships elsewhere. And I did. I announced over Sunday lunch at Tucker's (the blue-plate restaurant on the ruined Petersburg square) that I was not going to David Lipscomb. Auntie dropped her fork and set into me, without breath, calmly and icily, lecturing, in front of several branches of family, about how this was the first step of my squandering. I was bemused. I just knew I had to get away. It was a fact. I respected Auntie, though, for being the only one in our family who didn't fawn after living or future children and who did not deal blows in gossip and secrets but directly.
I wondered how they spent their days. No kids. Even as a kid, I was jealous.
I took Beth back to meet them when I was in my mid- to late-twenties. They sat in twinned rocking chairs and spoke earnestly over each other, softly, rhythmically, but insistently. We hardly heard anything they said. But knew it was important and rational, just a little less aware of others or each other.
They've since died. But I still remember them as odd birds, sharp hawks, mythical bedfellows, in the family tree.