Evelyn's Gift to Me
I guess it must be a sign of old age that I'm casting my mind back to my youth, but here I go again. I think I feel a series coming on, so if this bores you, best not to check my blog for a week or so.
As I mentioned in a recent post, when I was growing up my closest neighbours were about half a mile away. They were the Irvin family - grandfather Henry, mom and dad Jimmy and Evelyn, Irene (my age) and Wendell (a couple years younger than me). They lived in a tumble down house with no indoor bathroom and they all shared one bedroom. The acrid smell of their unemptied chamber pot greeted me every time I went to their house.
To say that Evelyn was a character is an understatement. Years before she'd had a breast removed, and she delighted in lifting her shirt to show us kids her scars. She had no bones about flashing the one breast she had left either, but it was those angry looking red scars from the missing breast that held my morbid curiosity. Years later, after she'd had open heart surgery, she shared that scar with me too, but by then the game had become old hat and didn't hold the appeal it once would have.
Sweet Daddy Siki
Evelyn loved wrestling - Abdullah the Butcher, The Beast, Leo Burke, Tiger Jeet Singh...to her they were gods. She followed their careers like a dog worries after the scent of a bone, and it was rare to go to her house on the week-end without the TV tuned to a match and cranked to full volume. She and I used to argue about who was the best wrestler. Her money was on Leo Burke, but from where I sat, no one had the style of Sweet Daddy Siki, nicknamed "Mr. Irresistible".
Apart from wrestling, the thing that Evelyn seemed to enjoy more than anything was trying to humiliate me. I'm not sure why. Maybe Evelyn thought I was too proud and needed to be brought down a notch or two. She often talked about how stuck up my grandmother had been, and that I was 'just like Glennie.' Maybe she felt she had to bring me down to elevate the morale of her own daughter, who was grossly obese and had little in the way of self esteem.
Whatever the reason, Evelyn took every opportunity she could to try to make me feel insecure. It started when I was a baby - she was visiting my mom once and Irene and I were propped up side by side on the couch like two kittens. Evelyn turned to my mom and said, "Look at Irene's beautiful curls. But your Janet - she looks like a boy with that bald head!" My mom was furious, and judging by the look in my Mom's eyes when she told me that story, I don't think she ever forgave Evelyn.
Me? I used to smile at Evelyn's attempts to crush my spirit. Even when I was little it all seemed so silly to me. I remember Evelyn lining Irene and I up beside one other to see if, standing with legs together, the insides of our calves would touch. Irene's did. Mine didn't, which according to Evelyn meant I was bowlegged. She made the pronouncement with more than a hint of triumph in her voice. I don't think she got the reaction she was after though. I just giggled and walked home, my bandy legs carrying me there without any trouble thank you very much.
Many years later, when I heard that Evelyn had passed on, I remembered her foibles with some fondness. It's so true that gifts sometimes come in unrecognizable packages. Evelyn's gift to me was helping me realize that I was, for the most part, comfortable with who I was (the angst-filled teenage years aside). If a person can have all their faults (bogus or not) pointed out to them and still be comfortable in their own skin, that's a pretty good testimonial. And for that Evelyn, I thank you.
5:12:50 PM 
|
