Every Family Has One...

fiction

"Who is this?" Lily pointed at a picture of her great grandmother laughing with another woman.

"That is your Great Aunt Bets. Grandma Gloria's younger sister." Her mother answered.

"They look alike. But..."

"But?"

"I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Grandma Gloria smiling like that before. She looks happier with her sister."

"Everyone was happier with Aunt Bets around." Lily's grandmother said from the other couch. "Everyone except your Great Grandfather that is. My father and my aunt didn't really care much for each other."

"Oh! Family gossip!"

"Not so much gossip, just sometimes different personalities don't mesh well. My father was a very serious man. He thought the world should work in a certain way and he did everything he could to make sure that it did. I can remember him complaining to my mother and saying that the problem with her sister was that she never grew up. When I heard that I tucked it away for later. It sounded like the best idea I had ever heard of and before that moment I hadn't realized it was even an option."

Lily and her mother laughed, "Well you did eventually grow up."

"I did, mostly. But Aunt Bets never did. Not in my father's eyes at least. She was determined to do everything that ever crossed her mind. She lived life at full tilt. Always with a smile on her face."

"When I first met her she must have been 70 years old already, but you'd never have guessed it. I know she was a few years younger than Grandma Gloria but she seemed even more than that."

"Oh that's right. We stopped by to see her when we went to Disneyland when you were what, nine? She was living in Anaheim with her third, no wait, fourth husband. He was such a lovely man. All of her husbands were lovely. I can remember when she decided to marry him that my mother asked if he was aware of her personal graveyard. It was the darkest joke I think I ever heard her make. But she was freer to make jokes like that when it was just her and Aunt Bets.

That's the piece I don't know if my father ever realized, not only did Aunt Bets refuse to grow up, but when Mom would take us to visit during the summer she refused to act like she had either. They would sit in the backyard in their cut off shorts and spit watermelon seeds into a can. Anything we kids were doing they did as well. My mother climbed a tree! It was crazy."

"I'm surprised Grandpa let you go visit if that was the case."

"I can't remember her ever saying anything but we all seemed to understand that the less said about our visits to Aunt Bets' house the better. He never joined us. They only ever saw each other at big family events. And they were always mostly pleasant to each other. My Aunt would tease him a bit and he would harrumph around and complain about her to my mother later, but it never stopped her.

Here, let me see that photo album for a second. I think there's a picture in here of...yes, here it is. That's from Mom and Dad's wedding. See her hair? My father was livid."

"What's wrong with her hair? It looks cute."

"It's short. She cut it off the week before the wedding. Had seen a photo of someone with a sleek bob like that and just had to do it. My father thought women should have long hair. He was sure she had done it just to bother him."

"Oh look, Uncle Dan looks mad too."

"Yeah, Uncle Dan always looked mad when he was around Aunt Bets. Or at least when they were younger. He eventually got over it."

"Got over it?"

"Aunt Bets and Uncle Dan were engaged at one point. Small towns, not a lot of choices, it happened a lot. Brothers married sisters, often in a double wedding. I think Uncle Dan was thinking that they should have been getting married as well but..."

"But?"

"I can't remember what the conflict was, something that Uncle Dan had wanted Aunt Bets to do and she hadn't. She either forgot, or hadn't gotten around to it when he wanted it done, I don't know. But he spanked her."

"He WHAT?"

"He spanked her. He grabbed her by the arm, turned her over his knee and spanked her. It was a different time. They didn't call it domestic violence. It was just a man keeping control of his woman. But she was not just any woman. Her father had never laid a hand on her mother and even more remarkably for the time neither of their parents had even spanked them as they were growing up. She was livid. Told my mother right away. My mother told my father. My father was furious. I think he was embarassed that it had happened, felt like it reflected badly on him as well. And I know he was worried because my mother told him if he ever laid a hand on her or any future children she would leave.

Though she said he stopped being mad at his brother for a moment and said, 'You think about having children with me?' so it was slightly romantic in the middle of a horrible event."

"I can't believe Uncle Dan hit her."

"She couldn't either. But that was the end of the idea of a double wedding and the sisters raising their kids next door to each other and that probably was for the best for my parent's relationship. Having Aunt Bets a few states away was a healthy distance. And Uncle Dan did eventually apologize to her. At my father's funeral, I believe. He told her that he had never laid a hand on his wife or their kids because of the shame he felt for what he'd done to her."

"Did she forgive him?"

"She told him she was glad he felt ashamed. That he should have. And then she told him that my father was a good man and she was glad he had that example to follow. So, no, not really. She thought he was looking for her to make him feel better about what he did instead of him actually feeling badly about what he did. And she didn't think it was on her to let him off the hook."

"Wow..."

"I think that's a good example for you to understand, Lily. Just like me hearing for the first time that you didn't have to grow up, I hope you hear that it's not your responsibility to make other people feel better about their bad behavior. You can forgive, if you want, but you never have to."

"I wish I could have met her."

"I do too. But her love of life, of living, you did get. Your Grandmother Gloria had it, even if she kept it a little quieter than Aunt Bets, she passed it on to me, I passed it on to your mother, and she's passed it on to you. And one day, if you decide to have children you can pass it along to them. Every family has someone that was a little different. And if you're lucky someday when the stories are being told, that person will be you."

Lily smiled, "I think I'd like that."