"'What should I call you, please?' Meg asked.
"'Well, now. First, try not to say any words for just a moment. Think
within your own mind. Think of all the things you call people, different
kinds of people.'
"While Meg thought, the beast murmured to her gently. 'No, mother
is a special, a one-name; and a father you have here. Not just friend, nor
teacher, nor brother, nor sister. What is acquaintance? What a funny,
hard word. Aunt. Maybe. Yes, perhaps that will do. And you think such odd
words about me. Thing, and monster! Monster, what a horrid
sort of word. I really do not think I am a monster. Beast. That will
do. Aunt Beast.'
"'Aunt Beast,' Meg murmured sleepily, and laughed.
"Have I said something funny?' Aunt Beast asked in surprise. 'Isn't
Aunt Beast all right?'
"'Aunt Beast is lovely,' Meg said. 'Please sing to me, Aunt Beast.'"
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (New York: Farrar, Strauss,
Giroux, 1962), p. 167
NBMJUDBLEB
LMBLMB called me a cherub and let me escape in the library the horror of
the high school cafeteria lunch. I didn't even know her when she wrote on
my final ninth grade report card that this was a good job (that might be
why I sought her out in tenth grade, to ask her why she bothered). She believed
in me from the beginning, and oh, did I ever need that. I don't regret many
things from my wedding, but one big thing is succumbing to familial pressure
and not inviting her to our small ceremony (if I'd invited her before blood
relatives...). During one particularly hellish argument with my mother the
summer after I graduated, I desperately called her. Having graduated, I
no longer had to be a cherub, but she came to us on the spur of the moment
and listened to us gripe; what was she, a family counselor? She was that
day. A kindly soul, and another person to be grateful for.
(top)
NBMSEM's mother. From the very beginning of my
tenure at UConn, I called her Mom M., as
did most of SEM's friends. In her kitchen hangs
a sign of a duck wearing an apron with a caption: "Kitchen Open; Waddle
you have?" Her cookie jar is always full, as is her generous spirit. She
fed us pancakes on the weekends (an advantage to having your mother in walking
distance) and when it was very cold, would bring us pizza on the weekends so
we wouldn't have to go out (UConn didn't
use to have weekend meals). She loves to give treats and, one Valentine's Day,
baked us each a huge heart-shaped chocolate chip cookie. The first time I met
her, I raked her yard clear of its fall leaves. My parents had children purely
to have leaf-rakers, I am sure, so I have to rake every fall or I get Leaf-Raker
Withdrawal. When I was in grad school she rented SEM's
room to me (he was in Japan) and having a worry-free place to live really helped
me that year, to have somewhere known and safe and where I could regroup and
watch Nickolodeon until 3:00 a.m. if I couldn't sleep, which I often couldn't.
Then when I went to her to tell her I was engaged, the first words out of her
mouth after "Congratulations" were "Let me give you a shower."
And she did and it was all purple, just like the Christmas stocking
she made and filled for me and the birthday presents she's given me. She is
a generous soul and I love her.
(top)
JUDBDEDBG's mother. Straight-talking, loving,
with a wonderful laugh. When I got to Charenton last (1996) August, after a
year away, DEDBG and JUDB were both from home, so I talked to the rest of the
family, SPG's parents, DEDBG's French foster
parents, and everyone, and when they returned and DEDBG
threw herself on me, JUDB pried her off right quick because she wanted a squeeze
too. In JUDB and APB, DEDBG's father, I first
encountered people who assumed that as a friend of their child, I would be a
friend of theirs too. JUDB makes the most wonderful bread. (I miss it, and I
always bring a baguette home for RDC when I visit.) JUDB
has always opened her home to all and sundry. She and APB love to give parties
and to be given parties; Charenton fêtes are among my favorite memories
of UConn. Their three children threw them
a surprise 30th anniversary, which delighted them, and it was this constant
hospitality that gave me my presumptuous idea. When RDC
and I got engaged and finally got the ring (which is when we decided to tell
people), I knew Charenton had to be one of our first stops. I had my hands behind
my back and brought forth my left, saying to JUDB that I knew she'd been waiting
for this for a long time. She whooped with glee. Then APB asked the question
that made everything so easy: "So have you set a date, or is this just
the next step?" "Well, actually," said we, "we wondered
if we could get married here." They neither hesitated nor looked at one
another, just said, "We'd love to!" simultaneously. It was a wonderful
party. And she was able to convince my mother to stay for breakfast the
next year, after DEDBG and SPG's
U.S. wedding. Not only did they host our wedding at their wonderful homely hygge
house, but APB came out and jump-started my car once too.
(top)
LEBDEDBG began to work with her in Scheduling
while in high school, finding the job because LEB and DEDBG's
mother JUDB are the senior members of a Storrs sewing
group, the Ladies' Sewing and Terrorist Society. This society positively
swarms with Aunt Beasts. Any story you want to remain private must be labeled
"not for public consumption." The Ladies advise you as readily
on photography and wedding details as on sewing. They all like dogs. They
gossip amusingly. Naturally I was closest to LEB and JUDB,
but I love them all: hospitable, dessert-cooking, generous, fun-loving.
Anyway, I admire LEB extravagantly and in many directions. She is kind,
willing, giving, a passionate gardener, a superb cook, an attentive seamstress,
active, fit, and she even knows her colors. Plus she always has a bed when
I need one: just before junior year to work in Scheduling (and to get out
of my mother's house again), to rent for
a semester while in grad school, and the summer of 1996 for my trip home.
And I love her pets, of which
she has several: two cats, two dogs, and two student tenants, and (only
one) husband. Her husband
asks me every year where I want my birthday kiss and I always tell him "on
your wife."
(top)
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