Momma liked smaller things. A demi-tasse coffee cup, teaspoons, a dessert saucer over a dinner plate, and a purse no bigger than a seven-year-old’s palm. She preferred small, cheap towels like the ones once stuffed into boxes of Breeze detergent over the bath sheets sold in fancy department stores. And she never wanted a whole stick of her favorite Doublemint gum. “Just give me half.” In our super-sized world, she often ordered an appetizer for her meal, and a small Ruby’s biscuit with a three-inch piece of Johnson’s boudin was all she needed for breakfast.
One of eleven kids, she likely grew up with smaller portions of everything. Her family nicknamed her “Poulette” (Cajun French for “small chicken”). I remember all 5’2”, 102 pounds of her pecking around our home with an ever present dish cloth (no bigger than a Kleenex), always cleaning or cooking.
Geraldine & Reggie
The LaTour Family
However, her preference for smaller things contrasted with the largeness of her heart and her need for beaucoup bon temps. She never turned down a spicy gumbo dinner, a competitive Bouree card game (for money!), or a local festival like the International Crawfish Etouffee Cookoff in Eunice,Louisiana or the Frog Festival in nearby Rayne.
Her “don’t ever leave me out of the fun” attitude continued even after her mind got muddled and she was confined to a wheelchair. In 2014 my Sittin Ugly Sistahs (Nancy, Mary, and Cynthia) joined me in Eunice for Mardi Gras, and we wheeled Momma two blocks to the downtown festivities: a street dance with a zydeco band, a boucherie where cooks used all parts of a butchered pig to make boudin, cracklin, pork chop sandwiches, and Momma’s favorite – backbone stew. After we enjoyed the rocking band, the rich food, and the Second Street parade, a light rain started. Momma half-dozed in her wheelchair while we held an umbrella over her. “Mom, you ready to go home and take a nap?” I asked.
“Y’all going home, too?” she said.
“We’ll take you home and maybe come back for the next parade.”
“If y’all staying, so am I!”
Momma’s “joie de vivre” was as big and bold as the Eunice Superette’s black bull outside their meat market/ processing plant.
Her love for her kids and grandkids was as strong as the hugs she gave us when she was forced to tell us good-bye after a holiday visit. Wrapping both arms around my waist she’d whine, “ Cha, I don’t want you to go.”
And she’d give me three tight, tight squeezes that always took my breath away even as I braced myself for the intensity. Momma’s smiles set her blue eyes twinkling and proclaimed her marquee-sized, unconditional love that gave me the confidence I needed to have my own children. So I still hold on tight, tight, tight to my memories of Momma’s endless and sometimes jealous love because I truly prefer a salad fork over a long-tined dinner one, and my coffee tastes better in a thin rimmed cup that holds no more than three ounces.
Last night I rewatched Kelly Reickart’s movie Showing Up. Focusing on two artists preparing for their upcoming shows in a northwestern town, the narrative follows both friend and family drama. As Lizzy creates colorful ceramic girls, Jo works with textiles and string to design installments that towered around and above observers. Poetic scenes of other artists working at the local art school are interspersed with the two main characters who live next door to each other and clash over plumbing problems and the care of a pigeon with a broken wing. With the art world as its backdrop, the film has Lizzy and Jo support each other in different ways. From appreciating each other’s work to sharing the care of the pigeon, they show up.
On a sunny day in late May, I watched my son play volleyball in Zilker Park with the high school tennis team he coaches – an end-of-the-year celebration for his students. I sat at a picnic table loaded with cupcakes covered in red, white, and blue frosting, platters of cut-up fruit, bags of chips, gallons of water and Hawaiian punch, two boxes of mango popsicles and a five-foot tall plastic bag of popcorn from the movie theater where one of the teens worked. The sun came in and out behind gray clouds that contemplated rain. After energetic volleyball games where the players got covered in sand, sweat, and good cheer, the teens joined me at the picnic table to eat the melting popsicles and cupcakes.
Showing up is a true sign of love. I go to weddings, funerals, birthdays, and graduations not for the cake or prayers or confetti but to show support for those I love during life’s joyful and sorrowful times.
Evan made a speech about the team’s accomplishments before explaining he and his co-coach’s version of participation awards: individualized Pokemon cards for each student! They had designed these laminated cards with the Pokemon logo on one side and a photo of the student with his/her Pokemon stats on the other. Kids had names like “Warrior Doubles Player” and “Sassy Server.” A tall senior told Evan the card was the best school “award” he’d ever received. I had not been looking forward to hanging outside that sweltering afternoon, but I loved watching my son’s tennis players celebrate with each other. Showing up might start out as a chore, yet the people I show up for always make me realize I made the right decision.
Shar (co-tennis coach) and Evan
When my youngest sister died suddenly in 2004, the ordeal became a blur of nightmares that left me gulping for air as my family planned for the saddest day of our lives. Except for the Sam Cooke recording of “I Am a Pilgrim” that Gayle convinced a priest to allow us to play as we exited the church, the funeral mass and home visitation stuff felt robotic, cold. Later when mourners filled Grandma’s house and spilled out onto the front porch and backyard, I remember seeing people who surprised me with their presence. So many from New Orleans and other cities Kelly had left her mark on showed up in our small hometown. Gayle’s closest friend flew in from California, and when I said to him, “Danny, I can’t believe you came all this way,” he told me, “Gayle would do the same for me.” Most of that day’s memories are hazy, but I do remember seeing Steve, Kelly’s former boyfriend who was as sweet and calm as he was creative and handsome. He gave me a smile that for a second made me feel safe.
Kelly at Christmas
In 2009 after my middle son had a horrendous accident that required a six-week stay in the hospital, my Sittin’ Ugly Sistahs showed up in the ICU waiting room. Throughout Casey’s painful weeks filled with countless surgeries, I sat by his bedside. Friends dropped off food and gave me comfort. Gayle arranged for our immediate family to come to Austin to celebrate Christmas that December while Casey was still hospitalized.
Sittin’ Ugly Sistahs
Years later, family and friends braved the Texas heat to attend Casey’s outdoor wedding after COVID had cancelled their first choice for a November marriage. Gayle and Kelly’s best friend Mark flew in early to help with the rehearsal supper and the big day’s set-up of tables and decorations. Around midnight as we loaded our cars with wedding gifts and dirty tablecloths, Gayle told me, “I’m glad I came for Casey’s wedding, but this shit was hard!” Despite the scorching temperatures and stressful work, she and Mark had showed up.
Last June Gayle’s husband died from systemic heart disease. I got a one way ticket to New York as soon as I could. Our nephew Ryan and his wife Kelly flew into New Jersey for the funeral. Friends from out-of-state came up as well. Of course, Danny was there. I stayed two weeks and helped Gayle as best I could as a steady flow of friends and work associates showed up.
Me, Mark, & Danny showing up for Gayle
When death happens, we can be at a loss: “I don’t know what to say.” We don’t have to say anything. Just show up and give the grieving person a hug, a sad smile, a nod, a box of brownies. Taking the time to drive, fly, or walk there means more than we know. Showing up announces, “I care about you.” Even if we can’t ease their suffering, showing up helps the ones with the holes in their hearts, the fog in their brains, and the confusion in their souls. Sharing sadness is not as easy as bringing presents or making champagne toasts, but showing up matters to those we show up for. Only in-person can we give someone a hug that will last longer than a card or a text message. Messages and gifts might mean we’re thinking of those we care about, but showing up means we’d risk highway driving or airport stress to be in the room where life is happening. We show up.
Besides reading to and dancing with my four-month old grandson, I adore showing him the baby in the mirror. I take him to our bathroom mirror, the full length mirror in the office, and the mirror on my antique dresser and say, “Who’s that baby in the mirror?”
Winslow’s bobble head goes from looking downwards to straight ahead where he sees his own fat-faced image. There’s a second of surprise when he first notices the baby in the mirror before he gives himself an open-mouthed smile. I embellish the moment with, “Who’s that baby in the mirror? He looks a lot like you!” My high pitched tones make my grandson’s head shake as he gives his reflection a bigger smile and he moves his chubby arms.
“Hey there, Baby in the Mirror!” I add. “That’s a cute Baby in the Mirror!” Winslow’s eyes widen and the mirror baby keeps smiling. “Why don’t you tell that Baby in the Mirror hello?” Then Winslow wobbles his head as he furrows his brow and starts “talking.” His ohhs, ahhs, and squeals grab the attention of his reflected self.
I urge both babies on with, “Look at that Baby in the Mirror talk! Isn’t he the best?” Winslow raises the octave and duration of his long A vowel screams, so I hold him tighter because his talking requires involuntary kicks and arm movements. I lean in closer to the mirror and mimic an impressed sports announcer, “Listen to that smart Baby in the Mirror! He is amazing!”
Last week I heard about a superstition that showing a baby his mirrored reflection will make teething worse! Winslow has been drooling and sucking his fingers for a couple of weeks now. Should I apologize to him and his parents for increased teething misery?
The “don’t tickle the bottom of your baby’s feet – it will make him stutter” might make sense, but the “baby in the mirror” warnings don’t bother me.
Scientific studies recommend quality baby mirror time. https://pathways.org/mirrors-good-baby/ They’ve also tested when a baby actually recognizes himself in the mirror. (Probably not until he’s almost two years old). Put a dot of ketchup on a baby’s nose, and show him a mirror. When he touches his own nose instead of his reflection, he realizes he’s looking at himself.
We babysit two days a week. Gary helps heat up bottles and distract Winslow with a cross between yodeling, humming, and what sounds like someone herding animals while I take a shower.
Since we don’t have a backyard or an abundance of baby toys, I’ll continue hanging out with that Baby in the Mirror. Winslow’s beyond the soul-sucking period, and teething is already a problem we’re tackling with cold soft plastic toys filled with purified water and our thumb knuckles while our grandson drools and shoves both fists into his mouth. Our biggest worry now is Winslow gagging himself.
We’re so lucky that Casey and Catherine do not scold us for our rusty baby skills or blame us for a tiny scratch on Winslow’s perfect nose or his dimpled wrist. They’re amazing parents – full of gratitude and patience and love!
And Winslow, well, he’s a joyful miracle. He doesn’t mind our grey hair or stained clothes. He is oblivious to a dusty bookshelf or dirty dishes in the sink. He greets us with open-mouthed smiles and kicks his chunky legs when Casey hands him off. He also widens his eyes and gives the Baby in the Mirror the same welcome multiple times a day. Winslow makes me forget my crooked left side, my flabby wrinkled body, and my cluttered apartment. Even my complaining old cat loses her ability to annoy me when Winslow is around. My grandson’s ability to ignore his aching gums or a wet diaper when he sees his double-chinned best buddy – that Baby in the Mirror – reminds me of the Zen masters. Live in the now and embrace the happiness right in front of you!
When someone tells me, “You’re so nice,” I suppress the urge to scream in his/her face or step on my cat’s tail. I see “nice” as a smear of margarine on a slice of stale white bread posing as a breakfast sandwich. “Nice” is a word that hangs out with “weak” and “bland.”
Necklace created by Mark Garcie
Yesterday my youngest son told me, “Mom, you’re too nice.” I stared at at the floor and counted to ten while my cat sensed danger and ran under my bed. Evan was referring to how I don’t know how to say “no” when he or his brothers ask for help.
People confuse my awkward attempts to fix my loved ones’ problems as kindness. But I’m really thinking more about myself than them. Seeing my grown children wrestle with hardships fills my head with zombies craving human flesh and my stomach with rotting raw oysters. I want to get a lobotomy and puke my guts out! So when a son’s troubles make me sick, I try solving their problems so that my own head calms down and my stomach stops churning. Like the momma pelican on the Louisiana state flag who feeds her babies with her own flesh, I give parts of myself to those who were once part of me. It’s not “niceness”; it’s self-preservation.
Back in the 1980s and 90s my number one job was to feed, love, and protect my kids. For twenty years I enjoyed the unconditional love and respect of at least one of my sons at a time. Baking poppyseed bundt birthday cakes or taking them to see the latest Pokemon movie made me a momma bear they could count on, and in return my head and tummy relaxed. Back then all I needed was a quick hug from a sweaty five-year-old to make me believe I deserved all the gold foil stars life could give me.
Casey, Shane, & Evan -1996
Crystal, my mom-guide/ consultant/ therapist, told me, “Living and caring so much about our kids is the yen and yang of our lives.” Preach! My own momma taught me to feed my kids rich, spicy foods, to make them laugh, to sing them songs as soon as I first made eye contact with their infant eyes, and to crave their company as much as their approval.
These days I pray to Mother Mary, “Please evict these hornets from my brain and settle the marching soldiers in my stomach – or at least make them trade their combat boots for Dearfoam slippers.” Is “Let go and let God” even possible? When a grown son sobs or has no appetite for his favorite food, I’m pulled into an underworld ruled by a satanic kind of Worry. I obsess and ask, “How can I help him smile again?”
I’ll drive the streets to help Evan put up fliers about his lost dog. I’ll make Casey a turkey sandwich and drop it off at his work when he’s too busy to take a lunch break. I’ll drive Shane to an urgent care clinic when he’s on crutches and worried about a swollen foot, and I’ll try not to take offense when he criticizes my clinic choice.
Last week Evan told me,”You worry too much, Mom.” He didn’t know that as soon as each son took his first breath of life I became his caregiver, protector, cook, teacher, nurse, dictator, confidante, and judge. And then Worry (a huge belching, farting, frowning dictator) plopped down in my head – forcing Common Sense (a tidy secretary) and Optimism (a grandma who crochets as beautifully as she cooks) into the back room of my brain. Worry claimed a throne right next to Love (a wise, patient librarian) where they both have ruled my life from that day forward.
When I told Evan I was writing about my tendency to be “too nice,” he gave me a side hug and said, “You’re not really too nice, Momma.”
I nodded at him and winked at my cat. “Right!”
Then my boy with the dark beard that hides his half-smiles and the keen brown eyes that reveal his artist’s soul turned up one corner of his mouth and said, “Everybody else is just not nice enough.”
I met my new favorite person in this world two weeks ago – Winslow McClain Gannaway! He weighed eight pounds, ten ounces and made funny faces while he slept. His mother Catherine said he looked just like his dad, Casey, my middle son. I saw Catherine in his chubby cheeks and soulful eyes as well as Casey in his long limbs and perfect nose.
We begin life with people wanting us to resemble our parents. “He has his dad’s big feet” or “his mom’s smile.” And as kids, we imitate our parents – combing our hair like Momma’s, pretending to shave like Dad. We often adopt their interests. Chefs have children who love to cook. The lawyer hopes his/her offspring will one day take over the family practice. A tennis player starts lessons for the kids as soon as they can hold a racket. For eleven years or so many children follow their parents’ lead.
As a kid I went to church every Sunday and learned to love our family’s traditions – from Good Friday crawfish boils to getting up before dawn for long vacations. Then my teenage brain veered into other directions, and I pushed back.
I went from loving to dance with my kid feet atop my dad’s size fourteen shoes to hating my size eight feet when I entered eighth grade. Would I, like him, need to drive to Lafayette to find oversized shoes? Would I even find women size twelves for when I became a senior?
I rebelled, rejected, and criticized my parents. I resented their help and worked hard not to become them. I felt proud of our differences and later believed my own kids would be closer to me than I was to my parents. I gave my kids more choices as I also hovered over their lives.
However, after all my pushing back on my parents’ influences, I realize I am stained with personality traits and habits that are just like theirs. My dad ate breakfast in white v-neck t-shirts and slacks. His undershirts had stains from previous meals, rushed shaving jobs, or paint from work. I remember Momma exclaiming,“Reginald!” at the table when Dad’s sloppy manners created round grease stains that Momma’s aggressive cleaning could not erase. So I judged Dad for his messy eating.
Just yesterday I noticed a circular stain on the right thigh of my favorite jeans. I can’t remember if I spilled the contents of a pork taco or the filling from a blackberry cobbler on that leg. When did I become stained with the flaws of my parent? Like Dad, I’m a messy eater. I also have big feet and hate asking others for directions. I love every kind of fruit and I salt my watermelon. I enjoy gatherings with relatives and friends where good food, strong drinks, and well-told jokes connect us. My siblings and I got his short-fused temper as well as his love of movies. He taught us and his grandkids how to pull our rackets back and to get our first serves in when playing tennis. I embrace Dad’s love of travel and adventure, especially the times that are unplanned and serendipitous.
When I was young relatives said I looked like my dad (which did not make me happy); I’d rather look like my momma with her petite stature and tiny waist. I still do have plenty of Mom connections. She loved her breakfast food well done. My husband often warns me: “You’re burning your toast!” and I say the obvious, “That’s the way I like it.” Over the years with practice I have learned to make good gumbo and crawfish etouffee, but I still dream of her pork roast with rice and gravy that I cannot copy. I also failed at mastering her portion-control ways; she never weighed over 110 pounds. She stayed apoulette (a small chicken) – dusting, picking-up, putting-away, ironing, cooking, and wiping clean every counter she passed. I did not inherit her need for a spotless kitchen and an organized living room.
I don’t think Momma nor Dad understood my love of reading and writing or my desire to live in a large city. They were small town born and bred, never leaving the south central Louisiana parish they raised their family in. Religion remained a major part of their lives, and they did their best to look the other way when their three grown daughters moved away from the Catholic Church.
I don’t attend weekly mass and I’ve not been in a confessional in more years than I want to confess to, but I often pray to the Virgin Mary and have rosaries in my desk, my car’s glovebox, and by my bedside.
The saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” fits my food tastes, entertainment tendencies, love of New Orleans and New York City, and interest in major tennis tournaments. I’ve learned to value my parents’ respect for close family ties and shared vacations. However, I have lived longer in Austin, Texas than I lived in Cajun Country. I believe in recycling, breakfast tacos, greenbelt hikes, tattoos, and lots of live music.
I have the Kellers’ obsession with movies and card playing and the LaTours’ love of music and laughter. The stains of my parents’ parents were pressed into their hearts and minds from those before them, so I claim the traits I’ve inherited, and now that Momma and Daddy have died, I do not want those stains to disappear. Like the thrift store robe that once belonged to my sister Kelly, I treasure old things, especially when they have imprints from my past.
I will hopefully leave my marks on my own three sons and their offspring. And one chilly day Winslow McClain Gannaway may ask me to make him some gumbo, and we will watch Cat Ballou together before I tuck him in at night and read him “Clovis Crawfish and His Friends.”
Growing up I stared out my bedroom window at the broken remains of the Claude Drive-In that was built 1952 in memory of my grandfather Jake Claude Keller, Sr. who had died in 1951. Hurricane Audrey destroyed the theater in 1957. In the 1960s my siblings and I explored the drive-in’s rows of silent speaker poles and the concession stand debris (mostly broken glass, crumbling plaster, and splintered wood). I thought part of the screen was still standing, but that was just my imagination.
As an eight-year-old, I’d stare into the blackness and imagine watching a movie from my bedroom. The phantom sixteen by fifty foot screen’s flickering images didn’t need sound because the power of movies could always ignite my imagination. I’d make up the dialogue or I’d pretend I was watching a movie I’d seen so many times I knew the actors’ lines before they said them. The movie Cinema Paradiso reminds me of growing up in a small town where two movie theaters gave us most of our entertainment. I loved the scene of the whole Italian village watching movies outside after their cinema burned down. My mind’s eye saw the ghost of a drive-in just yards from my bedroom window.
In 1924 J.C. Keller, Sr. and his partner opened the first picture show in Eunice, Louisiana. Movie western stars Tom Mix and Lash LaRue* once spent the night in my grandparents’ home. I remember a large oval framed photo of the grandfather I never knew in my Uncle Jake’s office. Grandpa Keller wore a suit and his unsmiling, intimidating glare looked too much like my scary uncle for me to feel comfortable in that office.
Grandpa & Grandma Keller
Because Keller kids got in free, we saw movies multiple times and worked at the picture show as teenagers. Except for a fear of the usher/bouncer Big Jim that diminished as I got older, the Liberty Theater and Queen Cinema were places of acceptance and escape. Movies helped shape my personality and marked the milestones of my life.
Viva Las Vegas
Getting my first pair of glasses in 1965 meant I noticed the pattern on Annette Funicello’s one-piece bathing suit in Beach Blanket Bingo. After getting teased at school for my cerebral palsy, Mary Poppins taught me resilience and optimism. Hair-pulling fights with my two younger sisters balanced out with our shared love for Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas and our fascination with the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night. When puberty confused me, Peter Sellers in The Party made me laugh at life’s unpredictability. Night of the LivingDead in 1968 convinced me that even the horror of getting my period was not as bad as a zombie apocalypse. The awkwardness and insecurities of high school seemed tolerable if I watched Barbra Streisand’sFunny Girl every day of its two-week theatrical run in Eunice. My love of Shakespeare and my attraction to stories of doomed love started with Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and gained strength with The Way We Were and Dr. Zhivago. In the 1970s, Sidney Poitier’s The Heat of the Night made me question the racism around me while M*A*S*H and Cabaret let me enjoy satire before I even understood their messages. Movies soothed, entertained, and educated me.
In the Heat of the Night
I’m thankful for the ability to stream so many movies now. I’ve learned to love documentaries and foreign films and independent gems. The size of my television does not diminish the light and shadow of Kosakovskiy’s Gunda or the creative directing/ editing of Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. As I take in fast edits, slow tracking shots, and purposeful dialogue pauses, movies tell stories that give my life joy, even while I’m wiping away tears. I truly believe I am a better human being because of the movies I have known.
The Oscar nominations were announced February 8th, and March 27 will be one of my favorite nights of 2022! The Oscars have been “too white” and too xenophobic, BUT Parasite did sweep the awards in 2019, and Moonlight was the true best picture in 2016. I love all the hoopla and live jokes (both clever & stupid). I want to hear all acceptance speeches and enjoy all the classy, sassy, and ridiculous outfits the nominees wear. Like they sing in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum:
“Something appealing,
Something appalling,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!”
Movies are as much a part of who I am as the Cajun food I crave and the LaTour and Keller cousins I love. So in 1963, I saw only the ghost of a drive-in movie screen down my winding gravel road, yet movie fantasies sustain me like the montage of Paul Newman smiles at the end of Cool Hand Luke.
My cousin Sammy remembers watching LaRue’s live performance at the Liberty when the star tore a hole in the movie screen with his whip!
When I walk at daybreak along empty streets, I feel comfortable while I nod greetings to yard dogs and window cats. One golden retriever rests behind a low fence and blinks his eyes at me without barking. My mind jumps around as I take in my surroundings and forget my worries.
I see a huge Siamese huddling beside a porch and say “Look at that gordito.” I notice the lime-green Hyundai that perfectly matches the paint on its house and say, “Cool coordination.” Other times I shake my head and voice concern about one of my grown children: “Should have planned better.” Or I admit a personal failure: “Sticking my nose in the beehive.” I believe that thoughts gain power when I vocalize them. A statement like “I am a writer” could become reality.
So I talk to myself as I take heel/toe steps on cracked sidewalks and look up to locate a lone sparrow chirping in a skeletal tree or sideways to spot dogs yapping behind wooden fence slats. I review a recent argument with Gary and mutter, “Why can’t you notice…?” Or I say, “Hey, You” when the opossum cat sees me as she heads to her gutter hideout. I may get profound when I consider an unusual cloud: “Looks like hope… or loneliness…or a penis.” Then a serious jogger to my right passes and I wonder if he heard me. Does he think I’m a drunk or an escapee from the retirement home? I can’t believe I’ve turned into someone talking out loud to herself!
I think back to Daddy walking down Second Street to his office two blocks from Grandma’s house. As I rocked on the front porch, I watched him talking to the air. He nodded and moved his right hand in short slicing motions to stress his main points. Maybe he was rehearsing something he’d say to a client or reminding himself to fix an unreliable toilet at home. Could he have been rehashing a conversation he’d like to rewind and redo? He often wore a grey or brown suit, but sometimes on a week-end he’d have on tennis shorts, a white undershirt, dark socks, and slide slippers. In either outfit I thought he looked ridiculous. Why did he need to say things out loud? He reminded me of Crazy Marie, an old woman who walked the downtown streets in her Sunday clothes and talked to herself. Marie walked fast and had a purse hanging from her wrist. She bobbed her head as she talked, sometimes making her wig crooked beneath her church hat.
I’ve told my three sons that “embarrassing your kids” is a parent’s duty, and I’ve done my best to carry out that parental obligation, learned from my mom and dad pros. Dad’s conversations with himself were one source of embarrassment. He didn’t care what passers-by thought when his one way conversations kept him engrossed in his own world. He had a lot on his mind, and walking and talking seem to go together like sighing and smiling.
I remember hearing Evan chatting away in his room when he was three, and I wondered who he was talking to. I peeked and saw he was alone and playing with his Beanie Babies. So it’s natural for kids to talk to toys and imaginary friends. Later they learn to converse mostly with other living beings. When is it acceptable to utter our thoughts to ourselves? Do we give our thoughts get stronger when said out loud? Are consultations with ourselves common enough for people to ignore?
Is becoming like my father – someone who often frustrated and embarrassed me- the natural order of things? I suppose I better have that discussion tomorrow morning around 7:27 with someone I know very well.
My childhood Christmases were down a winding gravel road in a ranch style brick home with my two little sisters and one older brother. The tree was displayed in the big living room between the fireplace and a large picture window that revealed some farmer’s soy bean fields and the broken remnants of a drive-in movie theater. On Christmas mornings Dad took soundless home movies of us dancing in our p.j.s while we held up that year’s Santa loot – 1960’s classics like Creepy Crawlers, a Midge doll (Barbie’s cousin), and a Mouse Trap game. Momma sat on the sofa and sipped Community Coffee.
Christmas breakfast was served in the best kitchen I’ve ever known. One swinging door opened to the cooking half and the other door swung into the eating area. That kitchen meant strong coffee and boudin with biscuits in the mornings, substantial noon time dinners that had to include rice and gravy, and mid-afternoon coffee with cake or pie. Supper was often leftovers or po-boys from Momma’s Fried Chicken. In between meals the kitchen housed bouree card games and Daddy (Papa) entertaining others with tall tales and bawdy Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes.
Grandma Keller’s House
Decades later after my grandma died, my parents moved into her two-story wooden home (built in late 1800’s). My husband, three sons, and I (plus my siblings and their families) celebrated all of our Christmases in their huge living room with a ten-foot tree crammed with ornaments and Momma’s gold colored paper-mache angel that stood in for the customary star. Momma arranged holiday decor in all the home’s rooms including fresh garland wound around the upstairs bannister.
My sons grew up with Christmas for sixteen people in that home, but in the 1960s and ‘70s, Grandma had Christmas Eve parties for sixty to eighty people: cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who felt like family. Kids ran up and down the long, long hall between the crowded kitchen where grown-ups smoked cigarettes and spiked the egg-nog and the big living room where knee-deep stacks of presents took up most of the floor space. Kids waited for Big Jim (the picture show’s usher/bouncer) to climb the front porch steps and act as Santa for kids reluctant to get too close to the man who often told them, “Don’t make me take off my belt” when they got rowdy during a Saturday matinee.
Christmas, 1995
For my kids, MaMa’s exuberance made Christmas mornings special. She would blast “Cajun Jingle Bells” to wake up the house, and she and Papa danced in the hall as their grandkids rushed to see what Santa had delivered. Even when the kids became cranky teens who worked hard to look unimpressed, Mama’s smile and her Christmas joy made all of us believe in holiday magic. The living room exploded with wrapping paper and boxes and pieces of plastic toys and opened candy containers.
However, by 2021 Mama and Papa have died and COVID has made travel difficult or unwise. So Christmas is smaller and less exciting. I’m relieved not to drive seven hours on I-Tense to Louisiana with its eighteen-wheelers and reckless drivers, who weave in and out of five lanes of traffic as if the cars did not hold babies and grandparents and pets.
And I don’t miss hauling presents in a van that barely had room for its occupants and luggage and special pillows and Beanie Babies. The year we gave Mama and Papa a Pottery Barn coat & hat rack, my youngest son wore no seatbelt and had to curl himself next to that five-foot tall present
We have lost some of that Christmas excitement we used to share back home in Cajun Country. We don’t see our huggin’ and kissin’ cousins or have Mama’s tight, tight hugs. And no Big Santa on the lawn to welcome us to Eunice. No boudin and coffee or Champagne’s stuffed pork roast (and Mama’s dynamite pork gravy to go with Christmas dinner) or LeJeune’s sausage or Maudry’s sweet dough pies.
Lil Shane and Papa with Big Santa
However, a smaller, no travel holiday does have its benefits. More time with my three grown sons and their special ladies. We play board games and we watch some TV – football or streaming movies. And we sit and talk and laugh a lot.
I lack Mama’s extreme Christmas joy, and we don’t rush off to early mass, but I feel extra blessed. This year we toasted to Mama and Papa (and Kelly). We told Papa jokes and Mama stories and remembered what Eunice felt like – walking to the Queen Cinema or Nick’s Restaurant or the circle tennis courts (now renamed the R.A. Keller Courts).
Yet our tiny condo crams us all together in new, calmer ways. We still follow our favorite recipes: Grandma’s cornbread dressing, Mama’s green beans with potatoes and her sweet potato souffle, and turkey and sausage gumbo the day after Christmas. We remember to “Laissez les bons temps rouler” like Mama and Papa taught us to do.
Gary and I get to know our sons as adults. We share opinions about movies, music, sports, and even politics without wanting to slap someone. We enjoy spicy foods we grew up with and learn new ones. We laugh a lot and become closer to our sons and their lovely partners. Now Christmas with eight of us in a 900-square foot dwelling feels as right as biscuits and boudin in Grandma’s kitchen.
My great-aunt Lena, born Karolina Katharina in 1890, was one of nine children born to hard-working dirt farmers in Kansas. In her youth and early adulthood, she was demurely beautiful, with large brown eyes and long brown hair that went nearly to her waist . She was a humble soul and quiet by nature. She had the sweetest heart of anyone I have ever known.
The story goes that in her twenties she married a good-looking man from Chicago. They lived there, and Lena soon got a job as a seamstress at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. She made draperies, napkins, and tablecloths for the hotel when she began her life as a city girl. She was extremely talented and made all of her own clothes, coats, slips, robes, and nightgowns too. In fact, I only knew her to have two store bought dresses in her lifetime- one for my brother’s wedding and one for mine.
Grandma, me and Aunt Lena
Aunt Lena had only been married a year or two when that handsome husband went out late one night for the proverbial ‘pack of cigarettes’ and never came back. Heartbroken and afraid of living in the city by herself, she packed up and moved to Amarillo, Texas to be near her sister, my grandma Martha Margaretha. It would be years before she would divorce that wayward husband, and somewhere inside, Aunt Lena made a vow to never fall in love again. She never did.
She rode the train from Chicago to Amarillo bringing with her a large, black steamer trunk packed full of her belongings. She also had a small, light brown suitcase with a darker brown stripe woven into the fabric that held her clothes. Everything she owned came with her on the train, except her faithful, black, push-peddle Singer sewing machine, which would arrive at a later date.
I remember well the small efficiency apartment she first lived in after arriving in Amarillo. Lena made do with her tiny apartment complete with a hot plate, and Murphy pull down bed. Complaining was not in her vocabulary, so Lena settled in, got a job, found the bus route, and waited patiently to move closer to her sister.
My daddy, J.C. Claughton, Jr., was a lot of things, but one of his best qualities was being faithful to visit his parents and Aunt Lena once or twice a week. He would drink coffee with them before work or stop by with some groceries on his way home from work. He was loving and faithful for all of their days.
My Grandma and Grandpa lived in a small duplex, apartment A. Side B finally became available, and Aunt Lena was given first choice. When she moved into apartment B, life truly began for Aunt Lena. Most of her eighty-eight years on this earth were spent in that little, stucco duplex on Hayden Street, twenty-five steps away from her bossy, older sister. Grandma and Grandpa had only one child, my dad, and Aunt Lena, never having children of her own, loved my dad something fierce. She adored him, and when my brother and I came along, she adored us as well.
Aunt Lena never said no to us, but she and grandma would go round and round when Lena would get tired of her bossiness and rules. If Grandma prepared a Sunday lunch, she would tell Lena what side dish to bring. If Grandma invited her friends over for Canasta, she would sometimes accuse Aunt Lena of cheating.
“I see you looking at my cards, Lena!” Grandma would announce.
“I don’t need to see your cards to win the game.” Lena returned.
“Well then, keep your eyes on your own cards.”
“Same goes for you.”
And this would go on until one of them either quit the game or Grandma would say lunch was ready. I’ve been witness to Aunt Lena throwing her cards on the table and stomping off.
“I’m going home. I don’t have to put up with your nonsense.” And she would walk the twenty-five steps home to duplex B.
Aunt Lena bought a television and Grandma had a phone line with an old black rotary phone, so they shared both the TV and the phone for the entirety of their duplex days. If Aunt Lena needed to use the phone she would have to ask Grandma, and if Grandma wanted to watch one of her ‘programs’, like Lawrence Welk, she would have to ask Aunt Lena. And I do recall Grandma paid for the newspaper, which Lena could read the next day when Grandma was finished. The two sisters negotiated their daily life decisions as sisters are prone to do.
Aunt Lena always let my brother and me have a Coca Cola at her house. (Those small 6 oz. Coke’s that came in a bottle.) Jimmy and I would be in her tiny little kitchen shaking up our coke bottles and spraying them into our mouths. Once, I recall a rather messy incident when one of us, probably my brother, shook his Coke but missed his mouth.
“Watch this,” he said. And he stuck his thumb in the coke bottle and began to shake it.
“I bet you can’t do this,” he taunted me.
And all of a sudden he missed his mouth spewing the sticky, brown liquid all over Aunt Lena’s kitchen-walls, curtains, ceiling, and floor. We stood frozen in time with our shoes stuck to the floor when Lena walked into the room. She never told on us, just helped us clean up and made us promise not to do it again.
Aunt Lena would patiently let me sit at her treadle sewing machine and sew straight lines on fabric until she taught me how to make skirts and aprons. I would have to sit up close so my feet could touch the foot pedal giving me the control. I would watch Aunt Lena take down her hair in the evenings and brush it, then braid it into one long plait down her back. In the mornings, she would unbraid, brush, then put her hair into a bun at the base of her neck. Always. No variations.
When my brother and I came by for a visit, we were supposed to go to Grandma’s house first. Grandma would get terribly jealous if we saw Aunt Lena before her. Aunt Lena would wave at us through her front window curtains as we bounded up the steps to the duplex and wait patiently until Grandma had her fill of us. This was another of Grandma’s rules: she wanted her grandkids all to herself at least for a little while. Aunt Lena never complained, but we knew it seemed unfair.
Aunt Lena was a sweet and pure soul. I never knew her to say an unkind word about anyone, not even when she was mad at Grandma. Her life was small in a lot of ways. She never drove a car, always depending on the bus, my dad or walking. On grocery day, she and Grandma would pull a little cart up the sidewalk, three blocks away to the Furr’s Grocery Store. And after their shopping, they would take turns pulling the loaded cart all the way home.
My Dad, till the day Aunt Lena died, would slip money into her checking account to supplement her small Social Security stipend. He wanted her to feel independent. She and grandma both, as they got older, would hand a blank, signed check to the grocery cashier and let her fill out the check and then they would show Daddy the receipt so he could balance their accounts.
1961 Lake Williams Colorado National Forrest Park
Daddy was insistent that Grandma and Aunt Lena travel with us on our summer vacations-camping in Colorado. Although anxious about heights, Lena was a trooper and participated in everything. Once, we all rode the train from Silverton to Durango Colorado, and Aunt Lena refused to look out over the mountains, praying loudly and repeating, “Oh, the heights, the depths and the altitude! God help us all.”
Though Aunt Lena never spent money on herself, she was always generous to my dad, brother, and me. On our birthdays, she would choose a card from her box of all-occasion cards from Woolworths, and sign it: Love, Aunt Lena, slipping a crisp five-dollar bill inside.
As Aunt Lena got older, her fear and anxiety took over in ways my father could not understand. She refused to wear her dentures after going through the painful process of teeth removal. She refused to get hearing aids although she couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. And eventually, she refused to eat anything besides what she wanted: Coca Colas, peppermint candies and Tapioca pudding. And at eighty-eight, won’t we all have earned the right to eat, live and love exactly as we wish?
Dear, sweet, great Aunt Lena passed from this earth forty-four years ago. I have her black, steamer trunk still packed with her sewing shears and threads, lots of old photo albums from my dad and assorted miscellaneous items from my youth. When I pass by that old trunk, I think about a shy, young woman riding the train from Chicago to Amarillo. I think about her bravery to live life when many things seemed so scary. And I think about the way she loved us with unconditional love and devotion.
Even if our worlds are small, and the ones we love turn out not to love us back; even if we have bossy siblings and no children to care for us in our old age, we can still have kindness and choose to love those close to us. We can dare to be brave even when it hurts. We can be generous of spirit and share our worldly belongings, knowing there is always enough for everyone. Aunt Lena seemed to know all of this intuitively and perhaps that is why she was loved so dearly.
Deer Hunting in Llano, Texas Aunt Lena in the front seat
My grandma used to grow zinnias and nasturtiums in a long strip of a garden in her back yard. As soon as you opened the side door, the colors and fragrance would greet you, instantly brightening the day. The Amarillo, Texas soil was hard caliche, but Grandma had raked and tilled it in preparation for her flowers, so they would have the best chance to grow. She cared for them maternally and took great pride in their beauty. Grandma’s garden was in direct contrast from her years growing up on a dirt farm in Kansas. The zinnias brought her pure joy.
Grandma and I would go to the back yard and stand on the walkway surveying her garden. “I sure wish it would rain,” she’d say. “We really need it.” She talked a lot about rain, the lack of rain and when it was supposed to rain, and then we would turn on the hose and water her plants by hand. “Be sure to give each one a good long drink,” she’d say.
Bending down on her old, arthritic knees, Grandma would pick the weeds that dared to creep into her domain, and as she did, she talked to her zinnia’s as she would a child, “There you go, little girl. Now you’re safe from those bad weeds.”
“Help me up,” she’d say, and I would. Then we would stand on the sidewalk and just look. I can see her now, standing tall, with her red and white checked gingham apron on, squinting into the sun, her detachable sunglasses flipped up, admiring her work, feeling satisfied at a job well done.
“You know you can eat nasturtiums, but they sure are spicy,” she said.
“Why would you eat a flower?” I asked.
“I think some fancy people like to do that, but I just like to look at them. They’re beautiful,” she answered.
Before my grandpa died, he would let us go out to his vegetable garden and use a hoe or rake. It was a his and hers garden situation. I don’t remember as much about his garden because Grandma made me help her outside and in the kitchen, her empire. Not only did she have her flowers, but she also had a peach tree and a pecan tree. Come June, the peaches would be ready to pick, and Grandma would begin her peachapalooza. Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach ice cream, whole peaches, sliced peaches, poached peaches, canned peaches, peach preserves, and jam. It was the same with her pecan tree too, as pecan pie was her real specialty, right up there with homemade cinnamon rolls and oatmeal cookies.
When my girls were little, I had an outside plant or two, and the usual ivy growing in the kitchen window, but I had little time or thought for gardening. I don’t recall feeling any kind of way about plants except for how much trouble they might be. My friend, Chrys, used to have her whole patio covered in plants and I was always in awe. How was she able to do it all with seemingly so little effort and so much joy?
When I moved to Austin, twenty-three years ago, I fell in love with plants again. Even when Boo and I were dating, we would have competitions on who’s plants would grow the fastest and stay alive. And although I would never call Boo Mr. Greenjeans, he has taught me a lot about caring for plants.
Our backyard and deck are home to thirty plus flowering plants that both give me joy and cause me angst. Like Grandma, I fuss over watering or when it will rain and why it hasn’t rained. I pick weeds and prune back. I cover and uncover in the winter, and I coax the baby sprouts in the spring. And as Grandma would, I often stand outside and survey my plants, talking sweetly to them as if they could hear me.
“Will you water my plants in the front yard?” I recently asked Boo.
“They are ‘our’ plants, you know. You’re not the only one who takes care of them.”
So, I corrected my wording to include “our”, but in my heart they are mine. Mine and Grandma’s. And when I see my flowers bloom or a tree branch with buds, I smile knowing Grandma would be proud of me.
The true meaning of the zinnia plant is affection, everlasting love, and remembrance. The zinnia symbolizes qualities that remind us to never take those we love for granted, and whether Grandma knew that or not, she lived it, wholeheartedly with her garden and with me.
My brother Jimmy, Great Aunt Lena, me, and Grandma under the Pecan Tree
Sittin' Ugly Sistahs 