HER RED-PAINTED TOENAILS

 From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist

 I am the eldest of my generation of exceptional women who dominate my family, and from early on I have taken my “first-born” status to heart and shared my “greater” experiences with my younger counterparts. It began the day I took my cousin, Connie in hand and showed her the ropes regarding her approaching womanhood. Connie was no more than eleven at the time. I was fifteen. Connie’s doting and seriously smart little sister, Cathie was also in on the private confab I maneuvered that fateful day so long ago.

“Do you know what a ‘p****d’ is?” I inquired of Connie, my voice a whisper and conspiratorial, as if giving away a state secret. Her exquisite head crowned by a mass of brunette tresses, lowered and shadowing the softest doe-eyes ever in creation, Connie looked up at me as if I was the most ridiculous person on the planet. “Why, everybody knows it’s a dot at the end of a sentence!” bookish Cathie inserted impatiently, her lovely blonde forehead crunched in dismay and disappointment at the utter stupidity of my question—disappointment because they were relying on me to clue them in on the mysteries of life and the ways of the world. Somehow I reassured them of my competence and pressed on. Minute after minute passed by as I spelled out to my two little cousins all the graphic details that I knew of the female reproductive cycle and its messy consequences. Her cherub mouth curled down at the corners in utter disgust, Connie vowed, “Well, I ain’t agonna do it!” I tried to make it clear to her that Mother Nature allowed her no choice in the matter whatsoever, but still Connie was unmoved and demanded, “I told you! I ain’t agonna do it!” She just was not about to let the thing push her around.

Time proved me right in my early vigilance over Connie’s development. Her girlhood to womanhood transition happened at mach speed. Marriage, children, divorce, all of it came very fast and early to Connie. And thereafter as a single working mother, she had no easy time of it. But no matter the challenges, she was a fierce and gutsy fighter.     

Well into our forties and despite not having seen each other for a long time, we were happy to discover at a family gathering that our old friendship was intact, in large part because of our similar journeys and comparable circumstances. Both of us were single, empty-nesters by then, and in many ways groping our way into middle-age.

Still a raven-haired beauty done-up to perfection from head to toe, gold-hoops winked at her earlobes and an assortment of rings flashed on her fingers in time with her animated exchanges with person after person. She and I found our way to each other and settled into a quiet corner away from the crowd, because Connie wanted to talk to me privately. That time she did most of the talking, confiding to me that she was dealing with severe depression. Always an entertaining storyteller, she chose a creative way of explaining her concerns to me. She said, “There’s a big old jukebox where I work, and there ain’t nothin’ but mournful old country songs on it. Tammy Wynette and that D-I-V-O-R-C-E song about how she’s tryin’ to keep her little boy from knowin’ his daddy’s gone wails out of it almost all the time. And then sad Patsy Cline is Fallin’ to Pieces over some man she wants but can’t have. That old George Jones bawls like a baby about breakin’ up with some woman. Nobody else but Cathie knows that I went to see a psychologist. She told me to stop listenin’ to sorrowful songs like that. She said that they don’t do nothin’ but make me sad and keep me rememberin’ all the bad things that happened to me.”

“I never thought of it that way, but I guess it makes sense. People are influenced by their surroundings.”

“That’s what the psychologist said. She said that songs like that bring me down. She said it’s like livin’ with an old sad-sack all the time.”

“Have you asked your boss to put different music on the jukebox?”

“He don’t care. He told me that his customers want sad songs and that’s what they’re agonna get. He told me to quit complainin’.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I’m agonna get me another job, that’s what! And ‘til I do, I’m agonna put cotton balls in my ears. I need to get out of there anyhow. My boss and other men there, they’re always pawing at me. I spend half my time dodgin’ men’s passes and slappin’ their hands away. It ain’t no decent place for a good woman to work.” In a reversal of roles, Connie was the teacher and I the student that day, for I was also “putting up” with situations that were not good for me. The ME TOO movement was only a longed-for dream back then.

On dog-tired feet and aching back and fingers worked raw, Connie had raised her two girls on her own. It was uncharacteristic of her to give in to tears over it. On the contrary, she was normally adamant about and masterful at putting a brave and happy face on her situation. As when she was a young girl and I tried to talk her into accepting her reproductive fate and she was having none of it, Connie was a reliably fierce and gutsy fighter.

Connie’s grit also came through in her iron grip on hope—hope that she would beat the illness that month after month of her 63^rd year was determined to snuff out her life. The final proof that she would not let life push her around was her pretty feet with their red-painted toenails that peeked out of an opening of the blanket on the hospice center bed on which she laid and from which her spirit ascended on an August night of 2011.

Whenever I think of Connie now, I see in my mind’s eye her red-painted toenails and the gold of her heart. One never knows from whence or from whom the spirit of inspiration makes itself known.

I invite you to use the reply space below to pay tribute to an inspirational person or incident in your life.©

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The above essay is Linda Lee Greene’s creative rendition of true events and commemorates the birthday of her cousin, Connie.

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Multi-award-winning-author, Linda Lee Greene’s novel, GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS is based on the true story of the family or origin of Connie and Linda. Paperback and eBook versions of the novel are available for purchase worldwide at http://goo.gl/imUwKO   

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