MY FAMILY

I pretty well stayed in my apartment today. I did not want to hear any more speculation about Rocky. No one has seen his truck since supper yesterday and they think he has already left. Probably. He had been getting rid of possession for the past few weeks. He could not have had that much left. The game at the moment is trying to determine what he told us that were lies and what might have been the truth – if there was anything.

I spent most of the day curled up with another J. A. Jance book. She writes to my tastes. Excellent mysteries.

I got a call from my niece, Wanda. She lives in Missouri. We don’t talk often, but she calls from time to time. She still is my favorite niece. We are only seven years apart in age. Because I was a surprise baby to my parents, my older siblings were married and having children while I was still a kid. Wanda is not the oldest of the grand kids. The oldest one is only two years younger than I am and one year older than my younger brother. Life is strange.

Wanda’s mother was my favorite sister. She was eighteen years older, but had me over to her place for many weekends when I was still young. They had moved out of town by the time I began high school and those overnight visits stopped.

I have a neat picture my younger brother and me sitting on a pony. There was this man going door-to-door with his pony offering to take photos of kids sitting on his horse. He had hats and chaps and did all he could to make us feel like real cowboys. She paid for that.

Of all my siblings, Doris was the farmer. She always had a small garden and animals when possible. I was in kindergarten when she assigned me to collect the eggs the mornings I was there. I was scared. They would flap their wings and, run around my feet and jump at me. Then there was the rooster. He chased me and pecked at my legs. His peck hurt, but the rooster was the worst. He attacked me every chance he got. If I didn’t have the rooster after me it was the billy goat. He wasn’t a very big goat. He had to lower his head to get me in the rear. He could really make me fly. While I didn’t like him any better than the rooster, his push was more like a shove. Doris said he knew I was little and didn’t want to hurt me. Right.

Doris was the first of my siblings to pass away. She died of a blood clot hitting her heart. She was resting peacefully on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. I had been married and was living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan when she died. I arrived on the day of the funeral. A gathering after the grace side was held for the family at her home. The reception ended up being a hostile environment. The hostess just happened to be her husband’s mistress. I spent most of my time trying to keep my two older brothers from taking him to the woodshed to beat him to a pulp. I wanted to join them, but not with the kids ages 10-16 around.

Diana, the first born, was the first to run away. She was angry. Her dad married the woman within a month of my sister’s death. The girls hated the idea. She quickly married and has shocked me that she is still married to the same man 46 years later, they have thirteen children. Wanda was next. It took three years before she ran, but by that time came she no longer hated the new wife. She just didn’t want to be around any longer. She got pregnant; married had the baby and got divorced. Seems like she has been living with different men ever since.

My sister was a godly woman and greatly influenced her children. She married the son of a minister, but not a godly man apparently. They all stopped going to church. Wanda often calls me for clarification of something she read in the Bible. She continues to seek God, but is wandering.

I have ached for this family since my sister died in 1968. My sister’s dreams for her children were shattered.