Today is my grandmother's birthday. We lost her two years ago. Well, not LOST, lost.I know where she is buried in Littlefield. But, people always have to say things like that when someone dies. Lost, gave up the ghost, gone to be with her Lord, passed on. But none of those seem to fit. It was like she just stopped. She was done. Life had become too empty for a woman who wanted nothing but to have love. It was hard getting it right for some of us. Filling that hole for her was a herculean task. We have many stories of holidays and special occasions completely nuked by one of her " got the vapors" moments. By that, I mean Maw Maw would let go of bodily fluids until we had to call an ambulance. Take that, Aunt Kathy's stuffing!
Getting it right seemed to be a quest for her. That woman's house was immaculate. I remember her taking vacation from the dress store she owned, to in particular do some "in depth cleaning". Nothing like bleaching grout to celebrate ones spring break.
The Vicki and Maw Maw would have clashes, but it was putting two negative sides of a magnet together. The tension was there, but no chance to connect. I have often wondered what my mother's reaction to such a complicated relationship would be when it's time on earth had ended. I never imagined what mine would be. I almost didn't consider myself a participant among the women in my family. I always felt invisible, awkward. Always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Didn't feel a part of the "gang". I didn't even look like any of them. I was delighted when my closest cousin and I had begun to resemble each other, but it was a bit scoffed at.
Modean going home to Jesus crushed me. This happened in a selfish, human way. Someone I knew intimately was no longer here, reminding me that one day I will also, take a dirt nap. Even as a wine drinkin' Baptist, that sometimes scares the shizzle out of me. A gift, though, started to come out in the year afterwards. I found programs to all the shows I had done in college in her trunk. Along with it, was a story I had written for a high school U.S. history project. I had written the story of my grandfather's minesweeper being sunk by a kamikaze. The man died when I was two, cancer begun by the smokes in his military rations. A strange, John Wayne- like presence I will not come to know until aforementioned dirt nap.
I sat in her guest bedroom filled with family pictures, running my hands over the hope chest I had played on since birth. Breathing in her perfume that permeated the house, I would never smell again, I realized something.
I was seen. She SAW me.
Then I found her pictures used in advertisements for her petite dress store( Just Petites Just For YOU). Beotches, I tell you now, that woman was FABULOUS. Girl made 80's shoulder pads and city shorts a thing to behold. Looking at her beautiful face, tilted at the EXACT right angle, those pageant feet ( if I have to explain that, we are not as close as you had hoped), I saw my foundation. The birth of my attitude in those 7 by 5's was there. No matter what we went through daily with her, good and bad, she had IT. A magic that drew us all in. A romance to her existence , that was inherently" getting it right".Coming out of nothing, bringing a newborn The Vicki home to a dirt floor, being widowed at 45, she had risen like a glamorous Phoenix time and again. My love of beauty, elegance, and desire to be MORE, comes from her. Good crap, that woman evoked her own Doris Day lighting on her eyes.
As she lay in her bed the last few days, she would mumble something about finding the "gate". My cousin Jonathon heard it. It was explained that, as she waited for Paw Paw Rex to come home from the war, he told her to watch the east gate, he would be coming for her. She was hanging clothes on the line when she, at last saw what she ached for. She ran most of the way to grab on to the love that was almost lost in the Pacific. Paw Paw told her, before he died, that he would be waiting there for her. When she took her last breath, my aunt said, " I will say it, Mama is running across that cotton field to meet Daddy."
So The Vicki asked us all to wear somethingof her's in honor of Modean's birthday. All of those meticulously kept clothes in great smelling closets. It killed us to give it all away. We divided up what we felt drawn to. I am proud to say, that today I have been lovingly supported by the woman who started my path of divaness's Wonder Bra. Shut up. You try to get into a petite woman's Evan Picon suit after eating $6.99 prime rib in Vegas for a week.
Bloated is as bloated does.
This brings me to the most important life choice, the Modean's language. She has left me with a verbal palette that would make Van Gogh tres jealous. She would often threaten to , "slap the slat" out of us. I did not know where my "slat" was located, but I felt it important to protect it from Abuela- induced trauma.
Well, hell I will just itemize the best of Wanda Modean Clayton with bullet points up in here.
*As nervous as a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair
*snatch you bald headed ( more Abuela assualt)
*glad you got to see me!
*Doll-baby (her generic greeting)
* Well, Shit fire and save matches
* as ugly as a homemade bar of soap
* my personal fav, Well, CAT HAIR!
I know we put people who have left us on a pedestal. Don't care. All she wanted was 24-7 love. She will get nothing from me for eternity but that. I go into my closet and touch the amazing clothes she left behind for me. Of course she told me that if I had them altered she would, once again, reorganize my slat. I don't know, maybe it's a bodily fluid?
I accept the source of my fabulousness. I feel when I am onstage, so connected to her, so SEEN. I also gladly look foward to someday, running across that beloved cotton field, when my Maw Maw will take me in her arms and ask why the hell I spilled wine on her Wonder Bra.
Happy Birthday Maw Maw.
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