Indulging in a Maryland summer custom, my family and I were sitting at our newspaper-covered kitchen table and "picking" crabs for our dinner. I began to reminisce about days many years ago when I in my younger days would go crabbing with my Aunt Delanie. Aunt Delanie, my dear step-mother's sister, was the next-best thing to "Auntie Mame," in my opinion as she threw herself wholeheartedly into anything and everything and seemed to joyfully make time for everyone.
At the kitchen table I reminded my son of the good times he had enjoyed with her as well. We recalled one occasion when Aunt Delanie, and I went crabbing underneath a Texas bridge with my son who was little more than a toddler. The water was shallow, and Aunt Delanie had to wade out almost to her waist in order to cast her line with a chicken neck attached.
She had her hands full, to say the least. Her right arm held my son like one would hold a football. The right hand held the crab line. Her left hand was occupied trying to hold the crab net and occasionally even plucking the ever-present cigarette from her mouth and then putting it back again.
When a crab suddenly tugged at her line it was inevitable that she would lose control of something. I watched from a distance as she leaned forward to hold the line tighter and dip her net under the crab. Intent as she was, she did not notice that my son, still in "football" position was getting lowered and dipped as well. As my son's head went lower and lower, I discovered it was not easy to run through water and my screams were muffled from the noise of traffic on the bridge. My wildly waving arms finally did the trick. All's well that ends well, and I remember laughing with Aunt Delanie about the incident in later years as I took her to our weekly dinners at her favorite restaurant on Lake Houston.
We covered a lifetime of subjects during those dinners, and one night's conversation in particular proved very significant later. We were talking about death and dying and half-joking, we made a deal with each other. Whoever died first was to send a sign to the other that all was well on the "other side." If I died first, I was to send her white roses; if she died first, she would send me angels, she said.
Aunt Delanie was born in late January, and she died in late January as well. Needless to say, many were heart-broken by her passing. After her funeral, several days had passed, and I still found it difficult to make myself go out and do anything at all. A friend urged me to make an effort to go to a baby shower to try to get me going again, and I reluctantly agreed.
The shower was at the home of a lady I did not know. When I walked into the hostess' living room, the first thing I noticed was a primitive-looking angel at least four feet high that looked completely out of place in her very traditional décor. I immediately received a mental picture of Aunt Delanie, and I stopped in my tracks. At my first opportunity I cornered the hostess in her kitchen and remarked to her about the beautiful angel that was so prominently displayed.
"You know, it's the oddest thing," she said to me. "I went to Galveston yesterday, and I saw that angel in one of the shops on the Strand. I can't describe it, but it was like it was calling my name. But I have no interest in collecting angels. As you can see, it is really not my taste and does not really match anything I have. I bought it too impulsively, and I really don't care for it much. Furthermore, it cost a lot of money that I would have rather spent on something I like better! And it's not even Christmas or anything!"
I could only smile and nod and feel warm all over. A couple of days later a friend gave me an angel necklace. In the days that followed and as angel cards and angel books and angel-everything seemed to arrive one after another "for no reason" for weeks and weeks, I smiled and nodded again. And again, and again, and again.
-Joyce Cavey
