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August 21, 2005
From Here to There
“Oh, you don’t want to see that old picture,” she said, quickly flipping the page of the faded photo album.
“I most certainly do, “ I replied. “Don’t hold out on me, Aunt Betsy!”
She laughed as she turned back to the picture she knew I wanted to see. “I was hoping you’d miss this one,” she confessed. “It was a long time ago.”
I recognized the young woman in the picture by her smile. Aunt Betsy wore the same mischevious grin now as I sat across from her. She had been beautiful, in that handsome sort of way that women were during World War II. She was fresh faced and utterly refined, even sitting under the canopy of an ancient oak tree in a grass skirt. I was entranced with the image, with the perfect capture of her life before me. The photograph proclaimed her youth and spirit, something that still radiated from her, even at eighty-three years old.
She traced the black and white photograph lovingly. “This was taken out at Lake Washington.” I watched her face as she revisited the memory, and it was as compelling as the photograph. In her mind, she left the confines of her modest home, and traveled back to that sunny day so long ago.
“We snuck out into the woods to try that skirt on,” she confided in me. “We didn’t want to boys to see us, and of course, Papa would have had a fit if he’d have known. That was my girlfriend, Evelyn, right there,” she said, pointing to an identical picture of another young girl. “I don’t know where we got that skirt, but we wanted to see how it looked on us. Only place to go was out in the woods. So long ago,” she said with a sigh.
I imagined Aunt Betsy and her cohort, sneaking off to don the forbidden grass skirt, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Yes, it was a long time ago, I thought, when something so innocent as a grass skirt was the height of rebellion.
“Thank you, Aunt Betsy, “ I said as I hugged her tightly. “That was a neat story.” She looked away quickly, blinking back tears. “Look at her,” she said, tapping her image smiling up at us . “So young. So long ago. Evelyn’s dead now, you know. Almost everybody in this book has passed on.”
“But you have the pictures,” I reminded her. “And you have the memories. But most of all, you have the hope of reunion with all these friends and family one day.”
“True, true,” she agreed.
“And you know the other good thing?” I asked her.
“No, I don’t reckon that I do.”
“No dresscode in heaven. You can wear a grass skirt every day if you want. As a matter of fact, I think it’s mandatory on Fridays.”
She chuckled as she closed the book. “Thank you for coming to see me,” she said. "You don't know how much it meant."
“It was wonderful, Aunt Betsy. Thank you for sharing these things with me.”
As I left that day, it was with a new appreciation for Time. Time propels us into our youth, and out of it, until finally, time has no meaning or power at all. Death is not so much the demise of our physical bodies as it is the evaporation of Time itself. We do not cease to be, nor do we lose the things that make us who we are. But we are no longer bound by the rising and setting sun, by the passage of minutes or hours or years. We are preserved, perfected, and untouched by Time.
The memories that built our earthly lives, they are not gone, they are merely our stepping stones into eternity. And when we are there, when time has disappeared- we will all find our grass skirts once again. And that will just be the beginning of something that will never, ever end.
*Aunt Betsy is actually my grandfather's cousin, whom I met on my recent trip to north Mississippi. The story is true, but the telling of it was slightly embellished. (Cause I'm a Big Shot Writer, and we get to do that occasionally. Ahem.)
Kith and Kin | By WonderGirl | 11:14 PM
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Comments
I love it... thank you for sharing...
Posted by: Aunt Vickie at August 22, 2005 10:05 AM
A very nice visit to the past...I miss my elderly relatives that have passed, I used to sit and listen to them until they made me leave. I don't know that I can do justice to the stories they told me, but I may try. Thank you for sharing.
Posted by: SonofThunder at August 22, 2005 2:18 PM
You're my favorite writer...now we need to convince some publishing companies. Want to see some fun pictures? Look at the Ukrainian orphans Kim and I spent some time with last weekend (and this coming weekend before the wedding)...see www.six0five.org for the pics.
Posted by: Clinton at August 22, 2005 8:20 PM
