Cut-&-PasteThoughts

Now, THIS is annoying! I try to write in my diary last night and “page not available?” Luckily, I have found that I can write in Word and then transfer it through the magic of cut and paste. One thing I learned really well from the last on-line class I took {and everyone is invited to my house to have a let’s-stamp-on-TreeOtter’s-computer party if I EVER take another on-line class} was how to use cut and paste easily.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my Auntie Babs, my mother’s sister. She was a member of an Irish Catholic family who all had Mary as their second name. There was Julia Mary, who died before I was born, Georgina Mary {Auntie George}, Rose Anne Mary {Auntie Mollie who died of tuberculosis}, Margaret Mary {called Babs}, Robert Mary, the only boy and the one my sister Roberta is named after, and Kathleen Mary {my mother and the baby who was called Kat-leen by all her sisters.} Auntie Babs and her husband Uncle Freddie were my godparents and I think this is why they agreed to take us in when my mother left for the last time.

My sister and I were sent to boarding school and my father needed a safe place for us to go during school holidays. We could not stay with him {he told us} because he was a police officer who worked shifts and it was not safe to leave two preteen girls in the house alone. And also, {but he didn’t tell us this} because his lady-friend lived upstairs. This was the way a police officer had to do it back then. Today they would be living together and no one would give a damn.

Anyway, during holidays my sister and I came home to Auntie Babs and Uncle Freddie who had no children of their own. My father paid board for us and he ate at this house with us at least once a day. My aunt was a kind woman who made sure that my father got a least one good meal a day even when we were not there. We lived there for about four years during the times we were not at our boarding school and Auntie Babs has had a great influence on my life. First, I looked very like her. My mother had red hair and green eyes and a white, freckled skin. I got the skin but the same dark hair and gray eyes that Auntie Babs had. Very often I was mistaken for her child which pleased me. She was the one who had named me when I was born and my second name is Margaret. My mother was too ill at the time of my birth to care, and since I was a 4 pound and 27 inches long preemie {the family story is that my father said I looked like a skinned rabbit}, Auntie Babs felt that I needed to be baptized immediately since it was doubtful if I was going to make it.

When I remember her most is when I find myself using one of her “sayings.” “Look in all the likely places first and then the unlikely ones.” She was a smoker but since she would only smoke through her cigarette holder and since she laid it down when she was finished wherever she happened to be, my sister and I were often corralled into the search for it. “If you are going {anywhere in the house}, look for something to take with you.” Thus, anyone going into the kitchen looked in the living room for tea cups to take back, and there was ALWAYS stuff piled on the side of the stairs that was to be taken up there by the next person going up. I have been very influenced by this one. I feel almost uncomfortable going from one place to another in my house or this apartment if I am not carrying something that needs to be put away!

“It is not finished until everything is put away” primarily referred to my sister and me doing the dishes. We were not through until all dishes were dried with a dishtowel {she thought it MOST unhygienic to let dishes air-dry}, put away, the dishcloth rinsed and spread out to dry on the edge of the sink and some almond-and-honey cream, which was kept on the kitchen window ledge, rubbed into our hands. I later adapted this one to my own kids as “No one sits down until everything is brought in and put away” when we bought groceries. This is a great way to get a kid who only wants to watch TV help one carry in and put away groceries.

“Hunger is the best sauce” is one that my children heard when they particularly enjoyed something and scarfed it down with enthusiasm. I even found myself saying it tonight when my partner and I ate out at our local Chinese restaurant. I remember my aunt telling me this when one time I had walked about two miles back from somewhere with my stomach rumbling only to find a salad on the table for me. {Back then, I didn’t like salads, which is something I changed as I got older and wiser} I gobbled that salad then and I can remember how much I enjoyed it even now.

The most important thing my Auntie Babs did for me was to save my life. She worked in a men’s clothing store and every Wednesday afternoon when the shop closed for half closing day {this was what we would now call comp time because the shop assistants worked on Saturday mornings then} she would come to our house to have lunch and visit her sister Kathleen. For one reason or another, she missed two weeks, and when she came the third week, she immediately noticed that I was looking unhealthily puffy. She mentioned it to my mother who dismissed it as puppy-fat. Since I had been as thin as the proverbial rake up to this point, this was not a good observation. As my aunt walked back to the bus stop, she passed by the doctor’s house and, on an impulse, went in and found the doctor not busy, She mentioned how odd she thought my appearance was and twenty minutes later, she and the doctor were at my house {doctors did that kind of thing then} and an hour after that, I was in hospital with acute kidney infection which could have killed me. I stayed in the hospital for three weeks until I was back to my usual skinny self and both my kidneys were working healthily.

As she got older, Auntie Babs was confined to a wheelchair and, eventually developed Altzimers. She died in her middle eighties smoking until the day she died no matter how bad it was for her. And on the days dhe died, she told a nurse to “Look in all the unlikely places” for her cigarette holder…