Fluffy

[vaneramos]

When I was very small I had a recurring nightmare in which horrific music drifted upstairs, then a dark shadow with a tall hat strode into my room to pry my eyelids open and see whether I was asleep.

In those days we had a cleaning lady named Aunt Lucy. She had been a part of our family for many years, beginning as my father's nanny when she was little more than a girl. She was French Canadian. She would come over once a week to look after me and Snoopy, and let Mom get out of the house for an afternoon of shopping in downtown Windsor.

Aunt Lucy lived common-law with Uncle George. This was not unheard of for French Canadian Catholics in those days. Uncle George had a wife in Quebec, but she was confined to a sanitarium and he could not get the marriage annulled. So Lucy and George lived together. My family would normally frown on such things, but made allowance for love under adversity. We would always visit them at home on Christmas Day.

Aunt Lucy had a fur coat, and every Wednesday when she arrived at the side door I would run down to the landing and bury my face in its softness. I can still feel it against my cheeks. Sometimes she would bring me a small gift, a little feathered model bird with wire feet. These we fastened to the wooden screen between the kitchen and the sun porch.

That was the only fur coat I had ever touched. My mother, an animal lover, would not have accepted such a thing from my father. She didn't approve of them, but never said a word to Aunt Lucy. And how I loved that fur coat.

Aunt Lucy was both stern and kind. She would call me or Snoopy a "bad egg" if we did anything naughty, but the dog got in trouble more often. I loved her dearly and I'm told my first word was l'eau-l'eau, to ask for a drink.

Aunt Lucy's coat must have become a little worn, because Uncle George eventually bought her a new one. Then she cut part of the old coat and made a stuffed pet for me, a Persian cat I named Fluffy. She had a lovely mottled coat with shades of dark brown and grey, and two shining glass eyes beneath the fluff.

Aunt Lucy got phlebitis. It was quite serious and I remember going to see her in bed. Then a blood clot went to her heart, killing her suddenly. I was only five years old.

We went to the funeral home. I was terrified and didn't want to see her lying in the casket, but understood if I didn't, I would never have a chance to say goodbye. From the back of the chapel I kept darting forward partway, then running to the back again.

"Come see Aunt Lucy," my mother said gently. "She looks lovely lying there in her pink nightie."

The next time I darted forward, I could see the soft edge of pink lace, but still couldn't bring myself to face the dead body lying there.

The funeral was a debacle. The priest, considering Lucy a fallen woman, barely agreed to do the service. When he did so, he called her Lucina, though her name was only Lucy. My family, all nominal Protestants, thought it ludicrous. I did not know about any of that, would not have understood.

I was alone at the back of the chapel. No one was paying attention. Whenever I darted forward, people would notice. It started to become a game. I did it again.

Suddenly my mother seized me in rage.

"If you can't behave yourself, you'll have to sit in the car."

I started to wail. Mother dragged me out of the chapel and across the dark parking lot, struggling all the way. She thrust me into the back seat of the station wagon and left me to sit there alone. I do not remember how long I sat crying in grief and terror, afraid of the silence and darkness, but knowing what deep trouble I would have if I left the car and tried to find the chapel again.

I had many stuffed animals, but my favourites were Fluffy and Jingles, a pale blue corduroy lamb stuffed with nylons. I didn't know where he had come from, but years later learned he had also been handmade and given to me by Aunt Lucy. His bell came off and he eventually developed a hole above his tail where the nylons started to come out; I kept pushing them back in. Fluffy's fur wore off until she was little more than a pale blob with glass eyes, her soft skin lightly burnished.

Every night I would pile her and the others around my pillow, even over my head. As long as I did that, the dark shadow with the tall hat would not come.

Comments

[writer00.livejournal.com]

I think this is probably the most affecting thing (to me, at least) you've written. The details are just the way they should be. I was so moved by this. I only hesitated to comment on this because I've been doing so a lot lately, and didn't want to seem as if I throw around the compliments freely. But this one demanded a response. It was astonishing and beautiful.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks E, my free written posts are starting to suggest themselves almost in entirety. I don't want to get too fussy with them, but I indulged here in a little more than the usual editing; for clarity, and to add a couple important details that arose afterwards. I mustn't do too much of that, because I don't want these writings to become burdensome timewise or emotionally, but this post seemed worth the effort.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is the sort of thing I expect to see published in some journal somewhere.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Well this is a journal of sorts. ;-)

But I know what you mean, and thank you.

[robearal.livejournal.com]

so, you were haunted by the Dark Side of Dr. Seuss.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

How did you know? Seriously! It was Cat-in-the-Hat of the Dead.

honest, in the Hemingway sense of the term

[ranjtheobscure.livejournal.com]

vivid in the Bellairs sense, moving in the Eco sense. This was amazing Van.

Re: honest, in the Hemingway sense of the term

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I have to admit I'm poorly read. Only a couple Hemingway short stories. I'm not familiar with Bellair. I read The Name of the Rose years ago and loved it, don't remember it very well except the whodunnit part. Foucault's Pendulum is in my short pile of six books which are next to read. I have some catching up to do. Thank you.

Re: honest, in the Hemingway sense of the term

[ranjtheobscure.livejournal.com]

Sorry...
John Bellairs is an author of children's books, or rather, adult books written in the style of Children's books.

Try 'The Face in the Frost' as your first.

Re: honest, in the Hemingway sense of the term

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll put it on my reading list. Sometimes when writing about my childhood I'm reminded of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind, one of our great Canadian novels, which is written from a child's perspective. I read it as a teenager. Time to revisit.

[kwangjse.livejournal.com]

Yep, another very visually pleasing story as I could see all that you wrote about as though I were there...and as your stories always do, it reminded me of similar experiences I have had, like the first nightmare; the first funeral—the first body in a coffin.

Applause :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you could relate to it so well.

[avad.livejournal.com]

love!:)
oh how i wish i could see Fluffy and Jingles...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

So do I. I don't know what became of them after I was about 13. They dwelt hidden for a little while in a pine tea chest, which I still have, then I recall my mother bundling them into some plastic bags and putting them in the attic. I didn't protest; they related to the childish part of me I had learned to reject. Most of them were pretty worn out. I don't know, but suspect they were subsequently thrown out, because none of them resurfaced when my nieces, nephews and daughters were small.

[robearal.livejournal.com]

Ah, homemade stuffed animals stuffed with nylons.

My oldest sister made me 2 when I was 3 or 4. I still have both of them. The first was a Snoopy made out of an old white terrycloth towel. He was always cuddly, although already missing some of the loops in the fabric. He's a lot more threadbare almost 40 years later. The second was a Kanga (of Winnie the Pooh fame). She wasn't such a success, since the stocking stuffing filled her head and her body, but not her neck. Her head always flopped to one side or the other. And she was made from a seersucker-like fabric. Not exactly cuddle-inducing.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That's neat that you still have them. As far as I know none of my childhood stuff animals exist anymore. I do have a family of 8 or 9 teddy bears—a few that were given to me, and several handed down to me from my daughters—and their pet golden retriever. None of them are handmade though.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Wow. This would make a great start to a book length memoir from you.

I love how you mingle the poignant and the funny bits. Which is what life does to us, and we persist in sorting "sad" and "funny" into separate boxes.

hugs, Shimmer

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Being able to see both sides of the adversities we have survived enables us to face the future with balance and humour.

I wouldn't begin a memoir here. Where exactly, I'm not sure; but mother and I both acted extremely out of character in this instance.