pieces and ponderings

My Aunt Barbara is a huge part of the reason why I enjoy writing.  She is a huge part of why I enjoy many things…funny movies, flying kites, singing silly songs, hot pastrami sandwiches, paintings by Van Gogh, Weimaraners…the list goes on and on.  She has been a huge influence on my life and one of my favorite people.

When I was eight-years-old, I began visiting my grandparents and aunt for two weeks every summer.  It was always a special time.  My aunt was a college English professor and when I visited I would go with my grandfather every day to the college where my aunt taught to pick her up from school…I loved doing that.

My aunt contracted polio when she was a child.  She survived the disease but it left her with no use of her right arm and limited use of her left arm.  The virus had affected her body in other ways too, but none that I would really understand until many years later.  The polio seemed to only slow her down a little from my perspective.  With encouragement from my grandparents, her parents, she learned to do many things.

To me, the fact that my Aunt Barbara’s arms didn’t work was just a part of life.  She let me do things that other grown ups didn’t, like carry her billfold when we went places and take out money to pay for things…that was a big deal to a little girl.

In the early 1970’s my Aunt Barbara received a miracle…a car that she could drive, steering with her feet.  The car had a huge disc in the driver’s side floorboard with a shoe mounted on it.  Aunt Barbara would get into the car, slide her foot into the shoe on the steering disc and off we would go.  I thought it was marvelous…she had to think it was one of the most incredible things ever in the whole wide world!  It gave her a new kind of freedom and she LOVED driving!  My summer visits only got more adventurous now that Aunt Barbara could drive.  We went all kinds of places.

From my earliest memories, my Aunt Barbara has always told the most wonderful stories about the goings-on in her life.  Her stories ALWAYS made me laugh!  Listening to all of her stories made me want to tell stories too…stories to make people laugh.  So she is one of the reasons that I write…to tell stories…to make others laugh…maybe.

My Aunt Barbara reads my blog and that in itself is a blessing…and when she reads what I write she writes her own thoughts back to me.  It’s a circle of writing life that we share…and I am most grateful.