A while back, my friend Gary asked me to play around with mock covers for a book I wanted to write. As you can see from the above assemblage, I am no graphic designer. But I still think the picture is interesting—to me, anyway. When I took it, I labeled it "Girl Stuff." That's my mother on the right and her older sister, my Aunt Vivian, on the left. Mama has always been a little bit of a tomboy, given that she spent most of her time, as a child, under the watch care of her older brother, who taught her to swim, hunt, and fish. We were laughing about that the other day—I said, "Do you realize you might be a completely different person if Uncle Chick hadn't raised you?" She was the baby of 8 kids, so the older siblings looked after the younger ones.
Mama's feminine side was nurtured by her two older sisters, Aunt Vivian and Aunt Joyce—who untangled her hair when she came home from the swimming hole and made most of her clothes. Aunt Vivian was a girly girl if ever there was one (though she, too, could handle a firearm). I always forget that her birthday is in the fall because to me, she was the human embodiment of springtime. Most every year, around February, I'll ask my mother, "Isn't Aunt Vivian's birthday coming up in March?" And she'll shake her head and correct me. Again.
I get my obsession with tableware from Aunt Vivian. At home, we only broke out "the good stuff" for company—most especially the family at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and the traveling preacher during summer revivals. But Aunt Vivian used her china and silver for everything. She gave me my first serious tablecloth when I got my first apartment in Birmingham. Wherever she went, she made the world around her just a little prettier and the people around her just a little bit happier.
That's a gift. If you've been anywhere near a television or the internet lately, you know just how ugly this world can get. And I'm grateful, this Sunday morning, for people like Aunt Vivian, who give so much more than they take; who are always looking for a way that they can help other people; who bring a little springtime just by walking into a room.
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