Miss Connie

She was the first single mom I ever knew. She loved her kids fiercely--just like the mama bear she was--but she also recognized the benefit of allowing them to be their own people. And she loved their friends just as fiercely.

She struck a perfect balance between parenting (and she expected our utmost--always) and listening. What other mother was willing to turn her house over week in and week out to a bunch of middle school girls and their dance routines? Even more amazing--what other mother would have enjoyed it? Miss Connie did.

We loved to get ready to go to the Youth Center while sitting at her vanity. She would lie there with her heating pad and chuckle while we discussed boys and Cathy gave us advice on how to flirt. Then we'd pile into her old Bonneville and head down the road.

Her arthritis made her reliant upon us to be the eyes in the back of her head. The maddest I ever saw her was the day we were too lazy to actually turn around and look when she asked us, and she backed into somebody downtown. Little did she know we had been throwing gum wrappers in her hair the whole time. I can still hear her right now upon discovering them, "Well, shit girls!" And the giggling--we never quit that silly giggling. I remember getting tickled while walking out of the old Piggly Wiggly once, and by the time we got to the car, she had developed the line that would become the refrain for years to come: If you girls don't stop giggling, you're never going to get a boyfriend.

When she got tickled, she's start laughing, silently, while her shoulders would shake. Then she'd take a deep breath in, "Oh," she'd say smiling at whatever antics we were presently engaged in. She had promised to buy us a Playgirl magazine, and she fulfilled her promise on a trip down to Panacea. There we sat in the backseat exclaiming about how gross everything was while those shoulders just kept shaking up in the front seat. She let us split one wine cooler but warned us she'd strangle any of us who ever told.

She was the best listener I've ever known. Whether I was complaining about my crazy mother--who was undoubtedly one of her best friends--or trying to recover from the loss of a love, my first reaction upon finding myself in a pickle is to pick up the phone and dial 1317. She had an uncanny knack of knowing what was going on with everybody in town, but you knew you could trust her with your deepest secrets.

She kept the pantry stocked with Funyuns. And Doritos. And every other variety of junk food known to man. It was all Cathy would eat, so she bought it. Every now and then, she'd make us grilled cheese sandwiches. And once a year, on the Fourth of July, she'd cook something that had wine in it--I've forgotten what. She never spoiled our fun by telling us that all the alchol had cooked out of it; year after year she let us anticipate this grown up meal and indulged our silliness after we ate. We'd go to the Country Club for the fireworks and tell all our friends that we were drunk from our dinner.

She didn't care when we made colossal messes--mud pies, slip n slide, orthodontist with every stuffed animal in the play room, elaborate sets for our dance shows including using (and breaking) every candle she had in the house as drum sticks. It was all OK.

She thought we were all the most beautiful, talented children she had ever known. We were all so incredibly different, and she loved us because of those differences. She knew how to treat each one of us just a little differently, so we would feel comfortable confiding in her. I wish we could bottle up that magic and sell it. It was an invaluable skill.

She was supposed to grow old with my mom. We've joked for years that mom was going to be the body and Miss Con was going to be the brains in the operation. Cathy and I were to make sure that mom had socks and dental floss, and we were to bring Connie a Blizzard on Sundays.

I think of the example she set for me every single day. She suffered in incredible pain for years, but I NEVER heard her complain. Not one time in my 34 years did I ever hear Miss Connie say she was feeling badly. I hope that on this Easter Sunday, she's got a view of Matthew McConaughey's butt in some tight jeans while sitting beside a lake where the fish are biting.

Thank you, Miss Connie. I love you and I miss you already.