One Tough Woman

Dear Auntie Jean,

How have you been? Sorry I haven’t written before now but I got busy with life after you left. I thought I should sit down and catch you up with a few of the thoughts that I have had about you over the last 60 years or so. I don’t exactly know where to start so, I will just jump right in – sort of like you would do.

You were always gentle enough to care for the smallest most fragile of kittens and yet strong enough to toss a straw bale the length of the barn. I saw you do it all. I have never known a woman like you before or since. One regret is that I didn’t get to know you better in our lives. Another is that I am not more like you. I know you never married and I’m not really sure if you ever had a man in your life but you spent your whole life around men and boys and you knew exactly how to handle them and how to keep them in line. I always thought that you were a good cook. Not because you cooked elaborate and eloquent meals but because you could mass-produce, in bulk. You were like your mother I’ve heard – my grandmother, whom I never met in my conscious life. You could handle a stove and could methodically and magically put together a meal for three, or for thirty-three, with the same effort in the same amount of time.

If I was to describe my favorite things about you, I would have to start with your fragrance and the way you felt when you hugged me. When you hugged me, my nose was directly even with your chest and you would take the back of my head and maneuver it so that my face fit directly between your breasts. I know that you might be embarrassed by me saying this, but I always thought your breasts were large and firm compared to mom’s and to your sister’s. You always smelled like Noxema skin cream. In fact, everyone in your family smelled like Noxema cream. You told me that your father (my Grandpa) used to purchase Noxema in 45-gallon drums – the Keg-o’-Noxema I think it was called. So, I loved the smell when you squeezed my face into your chest. I learned early in my hugging experiences with you and your sister that there was no sense trying to muscle my way out of a hug. You had arms like fairy-tale pythons. Any sign of breakaway attempts were countered with a recoil and a tighter grip. I learned to surrender and was quite content to feel the warmth and fragrance and safety of you.

I loved that you were so strong. You could work with the men all day and then come into the house and churn butter for hours before hauling and splitting a basement full of firewood for the stove. You always wore sleeveless dresses (at least around the farm). I imagine that dresses with sleeves restricted the circulation in your arms. You were like a body builder with pointy cat-eye glasses and a dress. You always looked so kooky especially when you sat down to knit and, you would knit, and knit. You could talk knitting too, with anyone – my mom for instance, who was a knitter extraordinaire or my Grandma Murdock who used to wear her knitting needles in a leather holster studded with rubies and rhinestones and walk down main street of our little town waiting for some unsuspecting woolen ne'r-do-well to jump out and challenge her to a knitting duel. Yes, you could converse in woolenese with the best of them.

Your passion however, was for, and your allegiance was to, the local Homemakers club, which consisted of other women your age. You would meet one night a week or on Saturday afternoons in the Odd Fellows Hall. I followed you to a meeting once but it was more than I could bear. You and your friends compared homemaking notes and ate matrimonial cake squares and went to the washroom together – you called it the Restroom, so I always thought that’s where you went to rest, after eating so much cake and talking about all that homemaking. I never thought about it much then, but now I think that you liked to be around women. I don’t blame you. You spent your whole home life around Grandpa and your brothers so I think you were glad to get away and be with other ‘girls’. I always wished for you to find a man for yourself but you never seemed very interested in that. Maybe I should have wished for you simply to find a lover of any sort. I just wanted you not to be lonely. You were such a great friend and provider for me. You would always have time to play croquinole or read a Family Circle magazine to me. You had great difficulty in mastering the mariachi static on the large upright ray-o-vac-tube radio. With pearl-handled butter knife in hand you would stick your curly head into the back and poke around until sparks flew and music played. Later, when Uncle Jim from Ottawa moved to Germany with his family for four years, you became adept, out of necessity, in starting the radio. The CBC offered live broadcasts from Armed Forces personnel overseas at certain times during the year. The whole family would huddle around the radio like the dog in the logo waiting for his master’s voice and you would deftly wield the knife into the proper location and before we knew it, we were listening to Radio-Free Canada or something.

Once, while over at your house, I aspirated a jawbreaker candy when I was playing in Grandpa’s bedroom. I panicked, of course, and I ran into the kitchen to find you, my hands clutching my throat and unable to speak. Seeing I was in distress, you whirled me around like a dance partner and with one blow to my back, from your huge right hand and, the jawbreaker jettisoned from my mouth. It was still rising when it ‘pinged’ off of the old black wood stove in your kitchen. And then you told me to pick it up and throw it in the garbage because it wouldn’t be good anymore since it had been on the floor. And then you went back to canning chicken or something. What a woman you were! Chicken canner by day, paramedic by night.

I know you remember John Diefenbaker from the sixties, and who became the Prime minister of Canada for a while. Our family were staunch CCF / NDP supporters. You remember how we had pictures of Tommy Douglas in our house right there on the bookshelf alongside our annual school photos and Grandma and Grandpa’s anniversary picture. Mr. Douglas was like a mystery uncle or something. I had a fondness for Mr. Diefenbaker though, and found myself having to support and defend his conservative policies even when I had no clue what they were or what they meant. During his tenure as Prime Minister, he went on tour across Canada, by train. Since our town was situated on the main line of the CNR, he had occasion to stop in our little station for about half an hour. You must remember how the whole town came out to see him? He first stood at the back of the train and waved to the crowd but because the cheers of support were so loud and boisterous, he took full advantage of the political moment and ventured into the crowd in most Diefenbakerian fashion. I would have been content to simply see this great man from a distance in real life but you, knowing my adoration for the fellow, dragged me through the crowd to get a closer look. In an instant, there he was, larger than life with that goofy looking fedora tilted sort of sideways, like a drunk would wear it, walking right in front of us. He was shaking hands with all of the adults – people who would be able to cast ballots in the next election – a shrewd maneuver on his part – but he did not pay much attention to me. As he passed by in front of you, you did the unthinkable. If you had done what you did today, instead of that night, you would have been immediately swarmed by security personnel, arrested and questioned at length before being thrown in jail. As he passed by, you reached out and grabbed the Canadian Prime Minister by the upper arm and pulled him toward you. I thought that you were going to push his head into your breasts and hold him there for some long moments. I wondered if Mr. Diefenbaker would recognize the Noxema fragrance. Instead, you held him long enough to point out that the young man along with you would really like to meet him. He was still in your clutches when he reached out his hand to shake mine. He asked my name and when I replied with great pride that I was 'John' he laughed and his jowls shook just like they always did on CBC television and he said, “Well, that’s a good name isn’t it?” And then you set him free like a young weanling pig, caught for relocation, and he moved on, and flexed his arm several times before his next handshake.

I don’t think I ever thanked you for that gesture but in over 60 years, it is still one of the most memorable moments of my life. I truly loved you for that act. I hope you knew that. I hope you know that now. I was so proud of you and I remember seeing the faces of all my friends standing around and looking on and wishing that you were their Auntie Jean. There are so many things I never thanked you for. I was too young to understand about thanking people for doing great deeds that would help to make me who I would become. So, I hope you will forgive me for that. If you were here today – I would thank you. So, maybe that’s what this letter is really about – thanking you, because I finally figured out what it is that you did for me. I loved you for that and I didn’t even know it. And, by the way, I still love you very much, wherever you are.

Forever your nephew,

John