the big blue

ABC Wednesday's letter du jour is U -- for uncles. I've had many, one who played in the minor league with Joe DiMaggio, one who was a carpenter, another owned a photo shop, two were teachers but my favorite would have to be Uncle Willis, who raised me.
Once upon a time. . .
 

                                    

He had followed Blood and Guts  George Patton’s Third Army across Europe and helped clean out enemy concentration camps after the war, but I’ve always thought that Uncle Willis mustered the most courage to drive down our street that day in June, 1963. I saw something blue  protruding from the trunk of his car.

Uncle Willis, along with my grandmother, had raised me in a small Idaho town after my mother, his sister, had come home with a new baby in her arms. A separate act of courage, that, because my grandmother had detested the man my mother had to marry. Grandma threatened to disown her daughter if she did marry him. I was born eight months later into a cheerless two-room apartment that smelled of alcohol and abuse. Soon after my birth my mother left my dad, moving back home, a move that probably saved my life as well as hers. Grandma accepted her prodigal daughter back into her home, but my mother eventually moved back with my dad. She promised to come back for me soon.  Soon turned into five years, long enough for me to give my heart to the unlikely couple the elderly lady and her adult son.

   When I turned six, I was legally removed from Grandma’s home and sent to live in another town with my parents. My new life began in a 1950’s housing development and first grade at St. Anthony’s School.  My mother worked every day, leaving me with my father, who didn’t hold a job. He in turn would farm me out to relatives who could use some help with their ironing or babysitting after school, all sandwiched between physical abuse by my father.
I grew more sullen, lonely for my grandmother and frightened of my father’s belt.   A girls’ blue Schwinn bicycle invaded my daydreams and sprouting wings, flying over the housetops of my neighborhood filled my dreams at night.   I would have settled for a used bike and it didn’t have to be blue, although that was my favorite color.
           Grandma and Uncle Willis made bittersweet visits to my parents’ home in the ensuing years. They couldn’t have felt welcome there but they wouldn’t stay away.    Grandma died when I was in junior high school. I saw less and less of Uncle Willis as he dealt with his grief and moved on into his middle age. During his infrequent visits to our home I would catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, sometimes winking at me. He saw the face of a child he had called Noni who had grown up with violence. Many times I saw him shake his head, perhaps from feelings of helplessness and anger. Through those years I know he saw the light go out from my eyes as the abuse extracted its dues from my life. My memories kept me connected to him.
          I never asked Uncle Willis to buy me a bike.   I still dreamt of flying away from my situation but by 8^th grade had given up leaving on a bicycle. What gave him the courage to buy the used blue bicycle he brought to me that day, facing my parents’ disapproval?  When had he made the decision? Did it cost him a lot of money? Did I adequately thank him as he lifted it from his trunk that day? Tying my transistor radio to the handlebars, after a few shaky tries, I took off down the dusty road in front of my house.  I remember looking back over my shoulder and waving to Uncle Willis.
                                                            I had sprouted wings.