My Dear Aunt Reba

by Vance Meyer

Aunt Reba and I were the only two riders on the small municipal bus that ran a continuous loop of the northern neighborhoods of Marion, Indiana.  Her house was across the street from ours, and the bus stop was just a block away.  

It was our ongoing agreement that I would be the one to reach up and pull the thin cable that rang a bell and alerted the driver to let us off.  Today's trip would take us downtown to the shops that adorned our town square before the mall swallowed up the shops and before Walmart swallowed up the mall.

On this snowy afternoon we would not make our usual stop to see her sister (my mom) at the Grant County Treasurers Office in the old courthouse, where mom worked for 19 years.  This was a covert mission to find my Christmas present for mom.  

Knowing my budgetary parameters, Aunt Reba suggested that we head right to SS Kresge's less than a block down Washington Street from the bus stop.  We kicked the snow off our boots on the creaky hardwood floor and began our search.  As if directed there by the Man whose birthday we would celebrate in two short weeks, I grabbed her mittened hand and led her to a floor display of stained-glass chickens whose backs came off and offered a small compartment for storage.   

I told Aunt Reba I didn't know if we needed to look further.  She smiled and agreed and even pointed out that a working woman like Norma (mom) needed a place for quick access to jewelry.  That information and the 99 cent price tag sealed the deal for me, and Aunt Reba wholeheartedly endorsed my decision to go with a red versus gold chicken since it was Christmas. 

We patiently endured the long line at the cash register and stepped outside where a speaker mounted to a light pole was playing a distorted version of Silver Bells over the sound of slushy car tires on Washington Street.

Probably realizing that we still had hours to kill and that the chicken had cost less than our collective round-trip bus fare, Aunt Reba suggested that we grab a hot chocolate at Newberry's up the street before heading over to the courthouse lawn where Santa Claus had dedicated precious in-season time to meet with the children of Marion in a small mobile building containing a jolly old recliner, courtesy of Leath Furniture, and a large monitored bowl of candy canes.  

A handful of fleeting years ago when my dad died and my sister and I were rummaging through his and mom's belongings, I ran across the old chicken.  The red color was chipping off and there was a pair of earrings inside.  I looked across the street to Aunt Reba's former home and it opened a floodgate of memories too extensive to list in a short story:

• The day she expressed shock that I had never consumed a chocolate ice cream soda and immediately corrected the problem with another bus trip downtown and another pull on the bus cable near the Freel and Mason drug store and soda fountain.

• The afternoon she asked me to sit on the front porch and tear up old bank checks after she had sorted through them.  A number of the checks had been written to a popular televangelist and I've never trusted them since.

• The time she acted secure and comforted that my cousin and her grandson, Brian, and I had established a security post in her hedges as part of a game that lasted all day.

• The sub-zero evening when she wrapped a blanket around me on Meridian Street and watched the Marion Fire Department extinguish the blaze that was consuming what was left of my house, and cheered with me when my brave and law-breaking brother-in-law escaped through my bedroom window with my poodle, Pierre, in his tight grip.

• Our many trips to the Green's Golfland mini-golf course on the by-pass, and the one remarkable time when she bounced her orange ball off of the side of a concrete beehive 14 times before making it in the hole and we both laughed like drunks in a bar.

• The time after I had become a teenager when I wanted to beat the shit out of the slick real-estate agent in a green Cadillac who charmed her over dinner into selling her house and moving into a not-smaller abode near downtown.

• The late evening when my dad and I sat inside of her living room for over two hours because she had become too old and confused to take our word for it that her neighbors were not intentionally shining flashlights into her picture window.

Aunt Reba's funeral was lovely but it was everything I could do not to interrupt the ubiquitous sermon and insert some memories, or to apologize for the fact that as an adult I had not visited her nearly enough at the Emily Flynn Nursing Home.

Some years ago when my wife, Teresa, and I were living in Connecticut, I hired a great neighbor kid to mow the lawn on Saturdays.  One day while the fresh-cut grass and lawnmower fumes found their way into my memory bank, I thought about the humid Indiana day that I cut Aunt Reba's lawn and she paid me with a powdered-sugar doughnut.  I went home and plopped on my bed, powdered sugar on my lips, and vowed that no old lady -- even a close relative -- would ever screw me like that again.  It's funny how time and perspective help us taste the sweetest memories of those we love.  

Tonight I get to take my youngest son, Noah, Christmas shopping.  He's years beyond Santa Claus but not candy canes.  Maybe I'll buy a box for the front seat.  Or take him for a chocolate soda.

Vance Meyer is a former corporate communication and marketing professional whose blog, myTMI, contains short stories about his life which he hopes that his boys, Samuel and Noah, will enjoy in their later years.