Tomorrow is Paul's birthday. He shares his birthday with my great-aunt Lyda Ruth. Paul will be 4 and she'll be 90. Aunt Lyda's children threw a big party to celebrate the big 9-0. It was fun to see so many relatives and hear their stories. My aunt looks so very much like her sister, my grandmother, that it made me lonely for her. I wish she could have met Coker and the boys. She would have loved them so much.
There was a slide show of photos running and a table full of photo albums to page through. I found one photograph of my grandmother at 40 or 41. She looked so young and happy standing there with her husband and 3 of her 4 children. I've never seen a picture of her at that age or many of her smiling. She believed that if you were having too much fun you must be sinning, but I thought she was fun anyway. She rarely smiled for the camera; I guess she didn't want proof that she ever had fun to be found film.
Aunt Lyda Ruth never hid her fun. She is every bit the fine Christian woman and has helped and loved so many people in her long life, but I saw several pictures of her as a younger woman wearing (gasp) a swimsuit! She volunteered at the VFW and attended parties, too. Aunt Lyda is smiling in the picture I took with her. Now, why didn't I get Paul in that picture, too?
No comments:
Post a Comment