Aunt Margie

If left to my own devices I would probably be a lot like my Aunt Margie in her later years. My Daddy's sister lived her whole life in east Texas, with the possible exception of her earliest years, of which I have no knowledge. Not being the family genealogist, I'm not exactly sure if she was born in Texas or in Oklahoma, where my grandparents lived before coming to Texas.

Margie married an oil man, had four beautiful children, built a magnificent home (hand-selecting the bricks she wanted exposed on the fireplace wall, to the detriment of the tendon in her arm), took care of her aging parents who lived across town in their own home and her mother-in-law who lived in a specially built m-i-l suite in her newly built home, and lived what appeared to be an enviable life. Her mother-in-law died, her husband left her (for his secretary, no less), her children grew up, her parents died, and she drank. Living alone in that big, empty house I can see how it happened. I recall once while visiting, she announced she'd quit drinking. I was shocked to see her unpack a case of white wine and open a bottle. She really had no idea that replacing Jim Beam with Chardonnay wasn't quitting.

I loved visiting my Aunt Margie. Memories of my childhood at Aunt Margie's always include time spent in her kitchen. Her kitchen pantry always held "exotic" foods we didn't have in our home. She always had Oreo cookies on hand, and Frito's and Cheetos, hot chocolate mix and a bag of miniature marshmallows. She even kept jars of maraschino cherries in her bar, and didn't mind that we put several in our Cokes or Seven-ups. I learned to add a slice of American cheese and milk to Campbell's tomato soup in her kitchen.

Even when I was a teen she treated me differently from the other aunts and uncles. She gave me a freedom I hadn't known before. Putting on a bathing suit and walking through the copse of trees, or the forest as we thought of it when we were kids, that separated her home from the gated swimming pool which served her small, exclusive neighborhood, at any time of the day or night was liberating.

Looking back on her life I realize she must have always possessed a creative soul. In her later years Margie began to write poetry. Long poems about her life, her family, her friends, her loves. Typed copies backed with blue paper, like a legal document, were often mailed to those she loved or featured in her writings.

I believe it was about this time when she changed her schedule. She began staying up all night, reading and writing, and sleeping during the day. This schedule drove my father crazy. He couldn't imagine how his sister could live this way. (His irritation probably stemmed from the late night, long distance phone calls Margie made to my mother.) I'm sure her schedule inconvenienced her children as well. Now they had to do her shopping and errands during the merchant's daytime hours and had to visit their mother on her schedule. To say Margie was idiosyncratic would be an understatement.

The past few days, for me, home alone, with no schedule to adhere to, no supper, no television, no bedtime, I found it surprising to look at the clock and see it was past midnight. Reading and writing and just doing "stuff" filled huge amounts of time and before I realized it, I was on my way to staying up all night. If it weren't for the minor inconvenience of a 6:00 a.m. alarm set to wake me for work, I would have kept right on reading, writing and doing "stuff" all night.

I think Aunt Margie was on to something.