Journal of a Living Lady #146

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Buddy said it sounded like a bar room brawl. He was close. It was a bedroom fracas. I fought the door and the door won.

 

All I know for sure is that I fell. Maybe I got twisted in my clothes as I was changing from pajamas to day clothes. Maybe I had a weak spell. Maybe I was just clumsy. Anyway, I found myself falling. I grabbed the bedroom door to decelerate the fall.

 

There I was, a partially clad heap on the floor, temporarily stunned and breathless. “Go on,” I whispered to Buddy as he nestled down on the floor to check me out.  “I will be fine. Just let me lie here a while.”

 

Feeling helpless, Buddy straightened my clothes as I regained composure. In a few moments he helped me to my wobbly feet.  The result was nothing more than some wooden splinters, skinned shins, and a battered door barely hanging on one hinge. Buddy could fix the door later. All I wanted was to lie down. This wasn’t how I planned to spend my day. The best laid plans of mice and women so oft go astray.

 

The next day I got news that a beloved aunt had passed away. It made my little accident seem so trivial. I had fallen, only to get up again. She had died, basically of old age, never to live another day in this world.

 

Yet, I am confident that I will see her again.  She was the first to take me to Sunday School when I was five-years-old. Many years later she married a man who helped me attend college. She was the always prim and proper lady, with the matching purse and shoes, who made it her goal to teach me basic etiquette.

 

My father’s sister was also a role model for helping those in need. If there is a star in her crown for every good deed she did, Aunt Anne has brightened heaven. She certainly illuminated many a dark corner here on earth.  I will miss her during this interim.

 

 

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nancyk@alltel.net            For publication 1/10/2002