Friday – Pictures and Letters and Audio Downloads

[ninanevermore]

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I've been thinking about my cousin Leslie a lot. I keep feeling a need to write a letter to her truck driver husband, Wren, but I don't quite know what to say.

Dear Wren,

I still think about her and cry sometimes, how 'bout you?

I should check in on him and see how he's doing. I know the rest of the family won't, and that would annoy Leslie to no end.

"Nina," she'd say with a sneer in her voice, "Can you believe they haven't called him? They still checked in on your daddy after your mama died, 'cause they still considered him family. Well, Wren still needs family, too, you know? He took care of me, Nina. That man stood by me no matter what, and God knows living with me wasn't easy, but he did it and he never complained. If I could, I'd come down there and kick every one's ass. But I can't; they got rules where I am about that sort of thing. Oh, by the way, your mama says to tell you hi."

Dear Wren,

Hope you're doing all right. It's been almost a year, and these anniversaries can be hard. Please know you aren't alone in your grief, not really. I do think of you often and wonder how you're doing.

I wanted to send Leslie a Halloween card this year, but I'm not sure they'd have known what to do with it when it arrived at the Body Farm. They probably get a lot of oddball mail there from a lot of odd people; maybe they'd just toss it on the stack with all the rest of it. I wanted to send her a picture of my son. She never saw him, since he was born after she'd moved to Tennessee and sworn never to come back to Texas, but she always called me up to gush about him I sent her photos.

I came across a CD I'd burned and written "Photos for Leslie - May 2007" on it. She didn't have a computer, so I made the disk to take to the kiosk at a drug store to print out copies to sent to her, not just of my son but of the children of her other two little-sister cousins, as well. I couldn't bring myself to toss the CD out, though it has long served its purpose and the photos are all stored elsewhere. There are memories burned onto that disk that no computer can read, but when I held it in my hand they opened up and played for me in a sort of audio download.

"Nina, I had to call you and tell you I got the pictures you sent me. Girl, I want you to know I cried, because it made me feel like family."

I reminded her that she was family.

"I know, but I felt like family when I got that envelope and saw what was inside. I mean, I know I'm technically family, but I don't always feel like I am. It's hard to explain. I'm the adopted one, you know, and I don't always feel like everyone considers me to be really family."

I told her she really was my family.

"I know that, and your mama was family to me. Anyway, what I meant to tell you was how gorgeous that baby of yours is. Where did he get those Paul McCarthy eyes? Those are beautiful. He is adorable!"

I asked her if she'd seen the pictures of Aly's and Frankie's children that were in there, too.

"Yeah, they're pretty cute. Frankie's little boy is cute enough, and Aly's little girl is alright. But I think the baby is funny looking. I mean, he's okay, but there's something funny looking about him."

I reminded her that Aly was funny looking as newborn, too. I knew, because I'd recently come across some old pictures of her, but she turned out okay, though.

"Yeah, but they aren't as beautiful as your baby."

I remember smiling and gloating, and thinking that I could never tell my other two sister cousins about this conversation. It wasn't until I visited my aunt this last summer and watched her dote on my son when I realized the origin of the bias that Leslie, and later her mother, displayed toward my son. It had nothing to do with how he looked, but who he looked like. My son resembles another skinny little fair-haired boy they loved and missed: Leslie's son, Cameron.

Then, after that file played itself out, I reheard another piece of my last conversation with Leslie, two days before she died. This memory was just a snippet. She had called me to ask me to research the symptoms that had been vexing her: the nausea and headaches and fatigue that her doctor had blown off. I was sitting at my home computer searching WebMD.com and coming up with nothing that quite fit while I talked to her. My then 2 year old son came up and asked to sit on my lap, but typing with a toddler on your lap is never easy, and I told him I would hold him later when I got off the phone.

"Oh, listen to him," Leslie said, "You tell him he can come over to Tennessee and Cousin Carol will let him sit on her lap all he wants."

Cousin Carol. I had taken to calling her by her middle name, Leslie in recent years, because that is what she preferred. But she was also, always, Cousin Carol, from the time I can remember. For some reason, we always attached the title Cousin to her name in the way Aunt or Uncle are used. It was how she always identified herself on my answering machine, "Hey, Nina, this is your Cousin Carol checking in on you just to see what's up."

With a moniker like Cousin Carol, I wonder, how could she ever feel she was not really family?

Dear Wren,

I have to confess, I don't really want to write to you. I want to send a letter to Leslie, but you were her heart and are the only part of her left in this world for me to write to, so please humor me by accepting this letter on her behalf.

I'm selfish and I’m going to tell you the truth; I'm not nearly as sorry for your loss as I am my own, though your loss and no doubt your grief is by far greater than my own. You and I both know that somewhere up in Heaven, Leslie is raising Hell and the place hasn't been it's usual peaceful self since she kicked in the pearly gates almost a year ago.

God help us, because when Leslie left she took a piece of us with her. And God help himself while he's at it, because he's really got his hands full. Leslie doesn't take sh*t from anyone, and I'm sure an angel or two has learned this the hard way when he stepped out of line and found himself with his back pressed against a cloud while she gave him a piece of her mind. I have no doubt that she's still kicking ass and taking names, because that's just who she was. Even Heaven can't take that out of her, and why would it want to? This world was a more interesting place with her in it, and I can only assume that that one has benefited from her, as well.

Comments

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

It's odd how so few members of Daddy's family recognize the uncanny resemblance between him and his grandson. Everyone else who ever knew him sees it and the pics of Daddy as a baby are practically identical to Buddy... and to my own, for that matter. But I do understand her preference for E. It's those Viking genes. :D

Now, I gotta admit, though, that I do have some small issue to her saying Rorie is just "alright." I'm practically fighting off the would-be talent scouts urging me to get her into modeling or acting! ;)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Rorie is beautiful. Of the 4 children involved, I'll agree she is the most photogenic and physically appealing. I don't think I've seen a bad picture of her since she outgrew her awkward infancy. No offense, but she was a bit goofy looking as a newborn, though nowhere near as goofy looking as my own baby. Gah! What ever possessed me to bring something that looked like that home? All red and scrawny and scruncy-faced? Love is every bit as blind as people say.

Leslie was the mother of a son, and gravitated to little boy children. Physically, E. is lean and tall, like Cameron was. He also has thin, fair hair, as Cameron did when he was small. Even though Cameron is technically alive, Leslie was still grieving for him, and at the end grieving the grandchildren he never had the chance to give her (she told me she knew they would have been beautiful). Of the 3 baby boys (and Buddy was only a couple months old in the pictures), mine was the one who most resembled Leslie's phantom, unborn grandsons that only lived in her heart.

It had nothing to do with your son or little Just In Case and how handsome they are (there are no ugly kids in our clan, though a lot of fugly adults), it had everything to do with Cameron. Perhaps I should lock this post down. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. :(

I see your daddy in your boy. His bigness, his sturdiness, and (most of all) his spriritedness are all the splitting image of your old man.

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

I remember thinking Rorie was THE most beautiful infant I'd ever laid eyes on, but looking back at the pics now... YIKES! Love is truly blind. I do have one or two pics that captured her future beauty quite well, including the very first pic, but the others are pretty funky.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I remember thinking E. was a hell of lot cuter than all the other babies at the hospital, in spite of the fact that he was red as a ripe tomato. Mine was funny looking, but not nearly as funny looking as all the others in the maternity ward. I wasn't sure what to make of his serious little expression; he reminded me a bit of Ron, and I was afraid he would not have any sense of humor like Ron. Jeff loved him at first sight, I had my reservations until he was 3 months old and started smiling (Ron didn't smile as a child).

The only babies I can think of that were cute from the moment they were born were my brother Russell's daughters (his son was average looking, which is to say goofy). I suspected they dared not be plain, lest their mother leave them at the hospital or trade them in for babies that matched her decor better. It wouldn't have shocked any of us...

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

*sniffle*