Some people think it's easy for me to smile. They think that perhaps I've lived a charmed life, but that is not true. They look at my life from the outside and see that I have two loving and loved parents who have been married over 50 years. My dad is a preacher and has preached at one Church or another for most of my lifetime. My mom is beautiful and soft-spoken; a true Southern Lady. She has held multiple, interesting jobs during the past 40, but the one most people know her through is her full time position of "Preacher's Wife. I have two wonderful, educated siblings who live close enough to visit often, but far enough to not get on each other's nerves. I married my high-school sweetheart, and we're still married. I have two wonderful sons. One is thirty-one and has been married for over 12 years. The other is seventeen and a half and is already in College. I was able to home school my younger son, and it was the perfect fit for our family.
I just don't complain. I make it a point not to saddle other people with my personal problems. I try to follow my mama's rule, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all." I even use this rule on social networks like Facebook. So most people have no idea of the things I've had to learn to live with.
I considered how far back I should go to begin sharing events that were't so pleasant, but I suppose I should start at the very beginning. When I was a baby, living just north of Los Angeles, CA, I was very sickly. I rarely slept more than an hour or two at a time, seemed to catch everything and was allergic to many products of the modern world. As an infant, my mom had to keep me in a "clean room," without carpets or rugs, no curtains, no clutter that could gather dust. My dad, who worked as a dam engineer, had to shower and change his clothes before he could even come into my clean room to see me in the evenings. I wasn't allowed to go out like normal kids, but luckily, I was able to go to natural places, like mountain lakes and rocky beaches. I learned to love these natural places.
When I was just a couple of years old, my parents moved back to Mississippi, where they were from. In the previous years, my dad's older sister died from a strange autoimmune illness that she had been fighting for her entire adult life and their mom died just a few months later. Daddy thought that Mississippi would be a better place to raise a family, plus he wanted to be closer to the rest of his family. (Daddy's dad had passed away when my dad was only three years old, and he had lost another sister to leukemia at about age eight, and a brother died from SIDS when he was just a few months old.)
When I was about 4 or 5, my mom's baby brother, Rowland, who was only 16, was getting into some minor trouble with a gang in California, so the family decided to let Uncle Rowland live with us. We lived close to a wonderful, Agricultural High School. So, he moved in and immediately became my "big brother!" I loved the life he brought to the house. I remember all kinds of fun "tricks" he pulled, just being a teen-age boy. One day, mama was cooking supper, and I was sitting on the counter, near the stove, watching her, as usual. Uncle Rowland came in holding something carefully in his hands. He came up to us, petting this unknown creature. Mama noticed him and told him that live critters weren't allowed in the kitchen when she was cooking. He laughed, yelled, "Oh, no, he got away!" and Something dark and slimy flew past my mom's head and landed on the counter, behind me. I started laughing, thinking it was a frog. My mom started yelling for Uncle Rowland to get that thing out of her clean kitchen. He was bent double laughing. I finally turned around enough to see that the "creature" was just some wet leaves, sort of squished into a big, frog shape.
He was always doing fun things, and playing with me, even though I was just a "bratty kid." I remember another time that he was tracing the veins on his arms. He outlined one on his upper left bicep and told me that it was a "6". I agreed, it looked like a six to me too. He then flexed his muscle and pointed to another vein next to the six. He told me that it was just a "1", but if I looked at them together, they read as "16." I looked and agreed, it definitely looked just like a 16. He said that he'd know that something really important was going to happen to him this year, because of his mark. He'd been so excited to turn 16, and couldn't wait until he found out what was so important for him this year!
I was excited too and pulled up my sleeves to look at my arms. He asked me to make a muscle and we looked for my veins. Since I was a little girl, I didn't have much of a bicep or many veins that showed, but I had a "9," clear as day on my upper right arm! I was amazed. Since I was almost six, I would only have to wait three more years for my "important" year. Uncle Rowland and I spent many hours discussing our magical years and coming up with ideas of what our special years might hold.
Later that year, Uncle Rowland begged to fly home for Christmas. He was doing great in school and wanted to see his mom and dad, brothers and sisters and friends. After much discussion and many long distance phone calls, it was decided that Uncle Rowland would spend Christmas and his birthday at home, in California. He would fly back here before school started in January. I remember crying as we drove him to the airport in New Orleans, LA, but he kept doing things to make me laugh again. By the time he left, I was smiling and excited for Christmas and MY birthday again.
A few days later, but still before Christmas, we got a phone call and they told us that Uncle Rowland was dead. It appeared that he'd been murdered. He had been shot through the neck with a shotgun, at close range. It went in on one side, below the ear, and blew out the other side, from the ear, the entire neck and part of the upper shoulder. Immediate death. When the police showed my dad the crime scene photos, daddy realized that there was no blood where he was found. The police said they were confused by that, but couldn't prove that someone had shot him and moved him there, in that hidden ravine. Needless to say, that Christmas was not one to remember. I honestly don't remember anything about that Christmas. I remember the one before it, and I really remember the one after that one, but that was a time to forget.
In our family, when someone dies unexpectedly, we don't talk about it. We don't even mention their name. It's like we're supposed to wipe all memories and thoughts about that person from our minds, and keep on going like nothing has happened. I don't know if my parents told my school teachers what had happened to our family during the Christmas break, but I remember sitting in class, daydreaming about Uncle Rowland and thinking about those veins that showed 16. If those veins really showed the age when he was going to die, then I only had a few years left. I hated the thought that I was going to die at age 9! I checked those veins hundreds and hundreds of times, hoping that I'd find another one so the number would be something like "79", even "19" would be better than "9!"
One day, a couple of months after Uncle Rowland had died, while daydreaming in class again, my teacher asked me to start reading our new story. I had to find it in my book, and when I found the right page, the story was titled, "Rowland Rabbit." Oh, My, Goodness! I started crying right then and there. I mean I was bawling! My teacher didn't understand what was wrong, and I couldn't catch my breath enough to tell her. Finally, she escorted me out of the room and to the principal's office. He knew about Uncle Rowland, so when I told him the name of the story, he understood. I didn't have to go back to class until they were through with that particular part of our book.
After that, I recovered quickly emotionally, as children do, although I did miss my "almost brother." However, the year I turned nine, I began to worry. I had the magical nine on my arm, so this was my year. I hoped that I'd stay alive most of the year, and die right before my next birthday, like Uncle Rowland did. That entire year was dominated by my thoughts of "this will be the last time I ..." When our azaleas started blooming, before Easter, I was so excited. These would be the last Azaleas I'd ever see. I'd sit for hours under, and in, the shrubs, simply breathing in their beautiful fragrance, listening to the bumble bees flying from flower to flower and watching the sunlight sparkle through the flower petals.
Every day was another "last day." I read all I could about life after death and the possibility of reincarnation was a comforting thought. Uncle Rowland loved hawks and he promised that he would come back as a hawk, if he was allowed, and he'd watch over me from high above. I had many close encounters with hawks in the years after he died, so I really believed that it was my uncle, watching over me. I tried to decide what I'd like to come back as. The top of my list was a dolphin. I knew that I wouldn't be able to watch over my family as a dolphin, but I sure thought it'd be a wonderful life!
I started a diary that year. I thought that my final year needed to be documented. I never, ever told another soul about this worry. If I had, I'd probably be an entirely different person today. My "Final" Christmas was a memorable event. I think I remember every moment of that day! I wasn't sad, but tried to suck every smidgen of happiness out of that one day! My baby brother was born Christmas Eve night, almost on Christmas Day, so my mama wasn't there with us, but daddy and my aunts did the best they could to make our day special.
Since my birthday is two days after Christmas, I honestly hadn't expected to live long enough to see that Christmas, and after it was over, I didn't know what to do with myself!
Finally, the morning of my 10th birthday dawned, wet, chilly and miserable. ...and it was the most wonderful day EVER! I had outlived my" 9th Year Curse!!!"
Nobody ever knew how I'd lived an entire year believing each day was going to be my last!
