She never did seem to belong here, in
this world I mean. It was as though
she had been dropped off by mistake,
maybe from a space ship on its way
to somewhere else. Most people, and
things, have a category or a niche
they fit into, but not she. I always
wondered how my uncle, my Father's
brother, got so lucky as to have
found her. Of coarse he never knew
what he had. But I knew. She, they,
lost a son in infancy, and a daughter,
she was six, got run over by a car.
The old man, nearly blind never saw
her. I did. I was six also. I saw her die.
She was still smiling.
Aunt Ella, that was her name, never
learned to read or write, only went
to the second grade. So I was her
teacher, but she taught me much more
than I ever taught her. Aunt Ella
raised chickens for meat and eggs, or
so she said. All her chickens had
names. She couldn't kill or eat
something with a name, even I knew
that. Nobody else did. That same
reasoning applied to the pigs she
raised on a bottle. She cried when
my uncle sold the pigs. He let her
keep the chickens, big deal! Said
it was a good thing she didn't name
the eggs. I think he was trying to
be funny. I didn't laugh. Aunt Ella
liked jewelry. I think she did. That's
what we, my sisters and I gave her for
her birthdays and Mother's days. She
wore all of it everyday. It came from
Elmore's Five and Ten, we had big
taste, if not good. She showed us where
she kept the dress she had made to be
buried in. Bright pink polyester knit.
She made us promise to put all her
jewelry on her. Even wrote it down,
printed it real neat, the way I taught
her. When the time came, and her wishes
were made known, some of the family
said it looked cheap. Wanted her dressed
"right, and proper" whatever that meant.
Who's to say what's right and proper?
Well, she won that round. It was high time.
Every body deserves to be a winner at least
once. I heard someone remark that she was
certainly different, a bit odd. I never
noticed. I preferred to think she just
marched to the beat of a different drum.
She marched, I dance, same tune...