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| Rose, 'Are you the brown one?...Are you Jewish?'...Great Aunt had a way of blowing your mind...(1977) (update) I didn't figure out we were underground jews until 2019. Yup, that is what happens when Father let the me figure things out for myself. Autism Spectrum = Aurtism Spectrum I also figured this out in 2018. I know, I know, am eye D.U.M.B. or whah? not any more |
Althea was tall and had girth to her, with a bobbed hair do, horned rimmed glasses, possessing a mysterious intelligence behind her (?wounded?) views on stuff. (She really loved my father.) We'd all kind of try to interact with her quick while being nice to her - then scoot away as she ,,,kind of ... admittedly intimidated a little sometimes. It became a ...kind of... fun game for us to do the 'try to be nice then scoot, thing. Would bring the Newsweek magazine a few inches from her face to read, and seemed to read at the speed of light, animatedly moving her face along the pages, scanning at top speed, taking only a few seconds on some pages but seeming to take it all in. She'd ask really weird questions and cared mainly about over eating and drinking. Bubby had to make sure she did the simplest things. Poor Althea.
Thing is, we all loved her, especially because her sister our Bubby did, who us kids adored of course and looked up to, what kid isn't thrilled to have a grandmother dote on you smiling. Bubby Florence had a very strong, deep heart. (We were heartbroken when it was her time to go, and especially for Althea. She and her sister succumbed relatively soon after one another.)
Althea had a way to come up to you and ask in a very 'ad alta' (top of the) voice, 'oh, are you the brown one?' Or 'the 'blue' one, or whatever the color of your eyes or hair were. This was just another reinforcement of the (internalised) terror of could happen to one if anyone found out you too were manic depressive. Even if it had happened a few generations before, that sick kinda stuff has been known to be perpetrated by some leftover sickos posing as docs. All kindsa horror stories about it, yada yada yada but there were real life Nurse Ratchets still hunting the night shifts of hospitals for us kinds of folk even in my day (70s).
Althea had a conventional lobotomy, I think, but her eyes were wall-eyed, like it could have been ocular. I don't know. There were more terrors lurking out in reality... 'nuff said. Poor Althea.
We loved you very much even though we were a little intimidated by you, old girl. Here's a bouquet of roses to your memory, 'Althea' ~ Great Aunt Rose
