Journal of a Living Lady #93
Nancy White Kelly
Is it Christmas again? That means another birthday celebration for Jesus …and me too. My birth is not nearly as significant as that of Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin nearly two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. His birth story is well worth reading and is recorded in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
I was a mere war baby born on a snowy Christmas Eve during World War II. My dad was sent a message by the American Red Cross announcing the birth of a baby girl. It also said, “Come home. Needed immediately.”
That was a rouse used by my aunt. Nothing was wrong except that my mother wanted my daddy to see me. It didn’t work. Apparently the Red Cross had lots of unduly urgent messages to come home. Thankfully our leaders, under the banner of the red, white, and blue, didn’t get overly excited about pink or baby blue blankets. If all the new daddies got to come home on furlough, we might have lost the war.
I am fifty-six-years-old this week. I used to think that sixty was ancient. Not now. Old will always be ten years older than me.
This is my ninety-third column. “Journal of a Living Lady,” started out as “Journal of a Dying Lady,” after a serious recurrence of breast cancer. If you have missed most of this drama, hopefully it will be out in book form in the next few months. That is my goal anyway.
In the meanwhile, this column has become a weekly literary portrait from my life, past and present. I write from my heart with little reserve. Sometimes that brings tears and sometimes laughter.
I can honestly say I have never heard anything but positive responses. Being duly encouraged, I have continued this personal journal, exposing my body and soul for all the world to read and sometimes feel.
Admittedly, my sense of humor is unique. It is relational to my personal time frame of life, starting in the early 1940’s. Humor is always relative to a person’s own experience. Sometimes humor does not necessary travel over time. What might elicit hilarious laughter from one reader might not even register with another.
A couple of weeks ago, during the election chaos, I received a joke that was extremely funny to me. I literally fell out of my chair laughing which is not good when you have cancer in the spine.
This is the email I received from a
friend: “HELP WANTED: NEEDED IMMEDIATELY A FAT WOMAN TO TRAVEL TO FLORIDA
AND SING. NATIONAL NETWORKS ARE STANDING BY.”
This humor was too good not to share with a few friends, including my sister who, unfortunately, has added a few pounds lately. It didn’t occur to me that she was not a fan of opera and probably never heard the “fat lady” mantra. Unlike me, she is extremely sensitive about her weight, and quickly sent a terse response asking me if she was missing something here.
Bottom line: I had offended her. No, I wasn’t offering her services to Fox News Network to sing in Tallahassee.
Actually, my only sister is a beautiful young lady inside and out. She was my parent’s fifth child, born just as I was graduating from high school. Never would I have intentionally offended my sister. I love her.
All is well with us now. I explained to her what the expression about the fat lady singer meant. In the future, I hope my sister will lighten up.
Oops! There I go again.
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Dec. 20, 2000nancyk@alltel.net www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly
