Thursday – Quiet and Unquiet Dead
Nov. 5th, 2009 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
"Our dead are never quite," my cousin Aly commented to me recently.
On my father's side, my Swedish side, the dead are as quiet as in any other family. Swedes are a quiet, mind-your-own-business sort of people when they are alive, and they remain so after they die. It's my mother's Celtic (primarily Scotch-Irish) bloodline that is so ornery in life that they continue to kick up havoc after they die. The opinions on that side of the family are often so strong that nobody is going to let a little thing like being dead keep them from putting their 2-cents worth in.
It was on this side of the family that my cousin Leslie Carol leaned on her trio of "Ass-Kicking Angels," as she called them. My grandfather was her 1st Angel, my mother was her 2nd Angel, and her father was her 3rd. Technically, her father was only related to my clan by marriage, but he put up with my aunt until death did he part and that alone shows a degree of ornery that is not to be trifled with.
Leslie, the adopted interloper who was never entirely accepted by some branches of the family, was beloved to these three in life. The loss of each of them over the period of a decade cut her deeply as these were the three people whose love was stubborn enough that even her most rebellious acts could not diminish it. She felt she was rejected by her birth mother, and never forgave that poor 15-year-old girl who gave her up in 1958 and allowed her to be adopted by my aunt, who emotionally rejected her when she proved to be more tomboy than porcelain doll. But my grandfather told her she was his favorite when she was little, and that never changed. Her father always considered her his little girl even after his wife turned her back on her. Then there was my mother, who mothered her more than either her birth mother or adopted mother ever did. These were the people to whom she turned even after they all died on her. When her son's brain aneurism left him permanently disabled and her world imploded, these were the saints to whom she prayed.
"Nina, I got three Ass-Kicking Angels looking out for me," she told me time and time again. "They ain't gonna let anything bad happen to me. I talk to your mama and my daddy every day. They got my back."
By having her back, I assume she meant they were there to offer support no matter what, because she was in no way protected from misfortune. Misfortune followed her wherever she went and finally did her in when the genetic condition that caused her son's brain aneurysm killed her in the blink of an eye. She called out to her husband as she stumbled, but was dead by the time she hit the floor. That day, Heaven learned what a real Ass-Kicking Angel looked like when my Harley-Davidson riding, salty-tongued-even-when-she-prayed cousin kicked in the pearly gates and demanded an audience with her personal trinity so she could ask them what the hell had just happed.
My own angels don't kick ass for me the way they did for Leslie. I can hear them talking and laughing before I walk into the room, but when the angels catch sight of me they fall silent. "You'll be okay," is what I hear from them, and then only if I listen very closely.
For Leslie, the Angels shouted: all I ever hear from them are whispers on the wind.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
"Our dead are never quite," my cousin Aly commented to me recently.
On my father's side, my Swedish side, the dead are as quiet as in any other family. Swedes are a quiet, mind-your-own-business sort of people when they are alive, and they remain so after they die. It's my mother's Celtic (primarily Scotch-Irish) bloodline that is so ornery in life that they continue to kick up havoc after they die. The opinions on that side of the family are often so strong that nobody is going to let a little thing like being dead keep them from putting their 2-cents worth in.
It was on this side of the family that my cousin Leslie Carol leaned on her trio of "Ass-Kicking Angels," as she called them. My grandfather was her 1st Angel, my mother was her 2nd Angel, and her father was her 3rd. Technically, her father was only related to my clan by marriage, but he put up with my aunt until death did he part and that alone shows a degree of ornery that is not to be trifled with.
Leslie, the adopted interloper who was never entirely accepted by some branches of the family, was beloved to these three in life. The loss of each of them over the period of a decade cut her deeply as these were the three people whose love was stubborn enough that even her most rebellious acts could not diminish it. She felt she was rejected by her birth mother, and never forgave that poor 15-year-old girl who gave her up in 1958 and allowed her to be adopted by my aunt, who emotionally rejected her when she proved to be more tomboy than porcelain doll. But my grandfather told her she was his favorite when she was little, and that never changed. Her father always considered her his little girl even after his wife turned her back on her. Then there was my mother, who mothered her more than either her birth mother or adopted mother ever did. These were the people to whom she turned even after they all died on her. When her son's brain aneurism left him permanently disabled and her world imploded, these were the saints to whom she prayed.
"Nina, I got three Ass-Kicking Angels looking out for me," she told me time and time again. "They ain't gonna let anything bad happen to me. I talk to your mama and my daddy every day. They got my back."
By having her back, I assume she meant they were there to offer support no matter what, because she was in no way protected from misfortune. Misfortune followed her wherever she went and finally did her in when the genetic condition that caused her son's brain aneurysm killed her in the blink of an eye. She called out to her husband as she stumbled, but was dead by the time she hit the floor. That day, Heaven learned what a real Ass-Kicking Angel looked like when my Harley-Davidson riding, salty-tongued-even-when-she-prayed cousin kicked in the pearly gates and demanded an audience with her personal trinity so she could ask them what the hell had just happed.
My own angels don't kick ass for me the way they did for Leslie. I can hear them talking and laughing before I walk into the room, but when the angels catch sight of me they fall silent. "You'll be okay," is what I hear from them, and then only if I listen very closely.
For Leslie, the Angels shouted: all I ever hear from them are whispers on the wind.
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