Bringing Betty Boop home with me
Saturday, October 15, 2011
And so I miss them.
My name is Beth Ellen Kephart. No Elizabeth. Nothing to shorten to Liz, Lizzie, Libby, Eliza, Betta. Just Beth, and then the Ellen, but my grandmother and my uncle called me Betty Boop. They called me Betsy, too, and other things, but what took hold in me was Betty Boop. When I go somewhere and Betty Boop is there, I bring her home with me. Look, I say, to the clouds above. You are still alive to me.
Today, in Jim Thorpe, I found this one, sitting on a swing.
2 comments:
Reverberating consequences. So true, how deaths can affect us through time, causing such trauma.
But then, there is the good that reverberates, such as as the comfort that can be drawn from a special name, as you mentioned. My maternal grandfather called me "Cassie." No one else in the world did. When in my memory I hear him calling me that, the love comes flooding back to me, also the feeling of specialness.
When my patenal grandmother died, a grieving cousin said "Nana loved me best." At first we thought he was saying he was her favorite, Then we realized what he meant was no one's love made him feel as loved and special as hers did. And Nana did that for each of us, for all of us grandchildren, and there were a lot of us. The way she loved was all-enveloping and safe, and made you feel like the best person in the world. Like her hugs, you wanted to stay in her embrace forever. I can still call upon the memory of them, and feel them again, when I need them. That doesn't die.
What a beautiful post. I miss my nana everyday, and so silly of me, but I miss my best friend Charlee, my dog everyday since he passed in August...he was with me for nearly 14 years.
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