Published: April 21, 2008 12:18 pm            

WHITE-WALKER: Forget Maude, my money’s on Mary

Is it shameful to admit that sometimes as an adult you have moments of child-like wonder, because without warning, there’s good old life with a big grin on her face handing you a prize? Not a booby prize, oh no, but something more rewarding than a winning lottery ticket. And make that not something, but someone — someday I’ll learn how to write. But it was in writing my column, In Memory of Maude that she came so unexpectedly into my life. I haven’t been this excited since my husband begged me to marry him. Or did I beg him? The memory sometimes rewrites the script, doesn’t it? But this is a different kind of excitement, and not all complicated because we’re not dealing with those sticky men/women relationships that so few of us get right.

In Memory of Maude was written while I was in shock, because here was Maude, an only sister born into a family of eight, count’em eight, of the roughest toughest brothers who could have probably settled the Wild West — single-handedly. A lesser baby might have deliberately wrapped the umbilical cord around her neck — I know probably a wimp like myself would have.

“You don’t know how tough they were,” defended my husband, “you never even met those men.”

“No, but all I have to do is look at a blueprint — you. I’m not saying anything derogatory, only that I’ve heard how they were very hard working and hard living. And how did your aunt not crumble?”

“It doesn’t concern you, leave it alone!” he advised.

But people do concern me and so I wrote about Maude and the article found its way to Ohio via thoughtful cousin Carolyn, and back to me came a letter from Mary, Maude’s daughter, and guess what? She’s more my cousin now than my husband’s.

“What, you don’t have enough family and friends, you gotta be stickin’ your nose into my side of the family?” he pouted.

“When was the last time you saw or spoke to her?” I asked.

“About 60 years ago.”

“That’s disgraceful. You can write to her too, ya know.”

“No, that’s okay, she probably likes you better.”

“’She probably likes you better.’ Sounds like two kids on the playground with, “My daddy is bigger than your daddy.”

From her letters I can ascertain that Mary isn’t your average still kickin’ around 80-year-old. Nope, not that incredible gal. It’s a federal offense to open up somebody else’s mail, but go ahead, I won’t press charges if you read mine from Mary. First, let me preface that years ago she had cancer, but she beat the odds and survived it. Now they’ve found a cancer on her forehead and this is what she wrote. “ I’ve prepared myself for anything that comes along — what choice do we have? The last time I had surgery I was up and in a wheelchair and out in front of the hospital before I was even awake. This time I sure hope they let me lay down, at least for the operation.”

Well guys, there you have it. If you didn’t laugh or even smile a little bit, you don’t deserve ‘meeting’ my Mary. Most people don’t make you snicker under the best of circumstances let alone when they’re facing disfiguration. Her letters are jammed pack with little antidotes, and because I’m not a selfish hog, I’m sharing. Just think, if I hadn’t written about Maude, if Carolyn hadn’t mailed my column to Mary, if she hadn’t responded, and I hadn’t written back, I wouldn’t have found a new unexpected friend. And this dear readers, is the wonder of life.

        

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