My Aunt Helen died recently.
I spoke briefly at her funeral and botched the job miserably. She deserved better, yet in her day would have forgiven my ineptitude with a laugh, a radiant smile and an invitation to share a libation.
I don’t plan on regaling you with stories of my aunt’s life. You didn’t know her and I didn’t know her well enough.
But for me she was a tantalizing part of the intricate tapestry that is my family.
If the Espys — my daddy’s clan — were a painting, we would be part Grandma Moses, part Charles Addams (with a Confederate twist.)
We are a family of small town, rural America — in most of the good ways and a few of the not-so-good.
But in my eyes Aunt Helen was a little different.
She hadn’t stayed around in Summerville like most of the family. She went off to the big city, married, had two sons and lived her life largely in a different orbit than us.
Aunt Helen worked in Atlanta as a federal court reporter. She became a city girl in many ways.
One thing that brought her back to us was Lake Weiss, the “Crappie Capital of the World.” Just over the Georgia-Alabama line, Lake Weiss was an easy drive from Summerville and my family has had ties to it for years.
My grandparents owned a wonderful lot there for many years. Granddaddy had a big pontoon boat anchored in a cove and the fishing nearby was excellent. In fact, that’s where I learned to fish and learned to love to fish.
Just down the shore a few hundred yards was another fine lot. Aunt Helen owned it and often spent time there when she could.
Her two sons, Gary and Dale, were often with her.
It was Gary who taught me how to swim.
He did this in cahoots with my older brother. I had more or less learned to swim in a pool but was still unsure of myself. Gary fixed that.
He did so by picking me up and tossing me as far out in the lake as he could lob me.
I went in a non-swimmer and came out the new Johnny Weismuller.
Gary also convinced me that he had a submarine parked under the fishing dock. I had seen some very detailed cut-away drawings of a two-man submarine that his brother had done and Gary insisted they had built the craft and submerged it under the dock.
I chose to believe him.
Aunt Helen later wised me up, but she said that after seeing the look of disappointment on my face she wished she had gone along with the story.
(If she had, I’d probably still believe that sub was sitting submerged in the crappie-loaded waters of Lake Weiss.)
The older I got the less I saw of my aunt.
She retired to Lake Weiss and lived for years like one of those fine old belles in a Truman Capote novel.
Aunt Helen liked to have a drink — and I don’t mean sarsaparilla — and she wasn’t shy about it.
That might not have played so well with a lot of Deep South folks. But as I said before, Aunt Helen did her own thing. I like to think her disinclination to be steamrollered by the standards of others is a manifestation of a genetic code we share.
We are not the only ones in the Espy family marked by a proclivity for eccentricity. I have in mind my irascible Uncle David, currently serving as commander of the 1st Brigade Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
I also think of my fine Uncle Gene, joyfully digging through stacks and stacks of dusty old books, looking for one more good find.
Family is a funny thing.
Like most young people I wanted my family to be as ordinary and average as I assumed everyone else’s was.
Norman Rockwell normal.
We never were and now I know that a lot of my friend’s families weren’t so normal as they may have seemed.
But the richer lesson I have learned is to not take comfort in the sameness of my clan, but to revel in our more colorful pursuits.
I like to think of David in his Rebel general’s uniform.
I like to think of my grandfather sipping Falstaff and shooting squirrels out of treetops with a .22, with my little brother at his side.
I like it that my Cousin Jason and his girlfriend once put on their prom finest ... and went to the mall.
Hell, anybody can be normal.
You gotta be a little different to run with us.
Aunt Helen was.
Bye, bye sweetie.
