My Jewell

To the unfamiliar and more properly spoken, her name would be pronounced as if describing a beautiful diamond or emerald...a beautiful jewel.   When you factor in the drawl of the east Arkansas cotton fields of her birth, it doesn’t sound anything like a beautiful diamond.  It sounds like someone forgot a few vowels and completely ignored the /w/ in the middle, but liked the way the /j/ and the /l/ sounded together.  My aunt Jewell was just that, however, a beautiful jewel...unique, colorful, and so very precious to me.
          I’m not sure if it’s a “regular” thing in “normal” American family life to have this kind of bond with your great aunt.  She’s my granny’s sister...my mama’s aunt.  Maybe “regular” and “normal” are better suited to a setting on your dryer or dishwasher; I don’t know.  What I do know is that I loved her nearly as much as I loved my granny.  The best way I can describe our relationship is to tell you that she was more like Aunt Granny.  I spent nearly as much time at her house, all through my childhood, as I did at Granny’s.  She doted on me and on my sister as if we were her grandchildren and we reveled in her affection.  She didn’t have her own grandchildren until the mid eighties when David and Shelby got married.  David brought Kevin and Derek into Aunt Jewell’s life and I have to say, I was a bit worried.  At fifteen years old, it’s a scary thing to think you might be replaced...on any level.  But that’s what a fifteen year old gets for thinking.  There was no need to fear because Aunt Jewell’s heart was big enough for all of us.  Then Jonathan came along about a year before my first son was born.  By then, I wasn’t so worried about being replaced.  Instead I was thankful that it was Danny and Kim who would have to deal with Aunt Jewell in full-on “I’m the Granny and I’m going to spoil him rotten” mode....and not me!
          I’ve been thinking, over the last few days, and I can honestly say that I don’t have many childhood moments that don’t include her.  I think she’s always been in my life.  I remember visiting her and Granny at the “groovy juvey.”  Just as a side note, I am firmly convinced that all of those visits to Granny and Aunt Jewell at work helped to keep me on the straight and narrow.  How many people have memories of regular visits to the local juvenile home?!  I remember coming in the back door of her house and her always greeting us with “Y’uns wanna a pop?”  There were always Cokes of several varieties on the steps in the mudroom.  Depending on what time of day I came to visit, whatever she might have cooked for breakfast or for supper was in a pie pan, covered with foil, sitting on the back burner...not far from the canister of saved bacon grease.  There was always a bottle of Jergen’s hand lotion in the kitchen window and sometimes, sitting next to the lotion was a prescription bottle for her or for Uncle Jack.  That’s how I learned that neither of them went by their first names.
          That house on Algonac Street looms large in the recollections of my childhood.  Her phone number was the second one I learned by heart...the first was Granny’s.  I loved racing my bike up and down the driveway, lolling on the front porch and playing badminton in the side yard and bedeviling Shelby’s poor dog, Buffy, in her pen.  It was the best house for hide-and-go-seek and, it was great for playing chase. Start at the hall bath...through the middle room, into the back bedroom, out into the mud room, up the steps into the kitchen and start all over.   I remember feeling “fancy” sitting at the bar counter to eat my lunch...even if it was nothing more than a fried bologna sandwich. 
          True to her name, she had a thing for the bling!  She had a collection of baubles and bangles that was impressive.  It wasn’t uncommon for her to wear a few rings on each hand and a few layers of necklaces...to the grocery store!  She was kind of like a decorator crab in that sense...the more sparkle she had, the happier she was.  I’m fully convinced that it is a miracle from God Almighty that she wasn’t mugged!  Her make-up drawer was as much fun as her jewelry box.  You might be surprised how many sticks of rouge and tubes of lipstick one lady can collect.  I always was.
          Aunt Jewell called me a few days before my commencement to tell me just how proud she was of my accomplishments.   It was May 1996 and I was receiving my Master’s Degree in Deaf Education.  I had already signed my first teaching contract.  “You’ve come so far, hon.  You’ve been through so much.  I always knew you’d make a good life for yourself.”  I...we, my sister and I had been through so much but she wasn’t content to let us believe that our circumstances, present or past, had any power over our future.   That gift of encouragement and support is far and away the best thing that she ever gave me.
          I have no sweet clue as to why she doted on me and on Amy the way she did.  I suppose it’s rather rude and maybe even ungrateful to wonder why.  She had her reasons...maybe because our childhood knew a great deal of heartbreak and hardship...maybe because she thought we needed the extra love...maybe because she had it to give.  I can’t answer that and even if I could, it doesn’t really matter.  She loved me and was gracious plenty good to me because she loved me and that’s all I’ll ever need to know.  I’ll take that kind of love...that kind of bond...over “normal” or “regular” any day.

**My Aunt Jewell went to be with Jesus, March 24.  In my mind's eye, the welcoming party at Heaven's gate was quite a site:  her parents, my granny and the rest of her siblings, her husband...she lived a full year plus one week without him...and the baby boy that she lost when he was only a month old.  The cares of this world have been erased ...the ravages of time and dementia have been restored.  She spent Easter in Heaven.  That's better than any Easter egg hunt, if you ask me!"

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