AMANDA

Photo: Amanda, before she learned how to smile

THEN (mostly):

Though there were five years between Bo and Shana, Amanda was born only 17 months after Shana. She was to be Lila's youngest child, her baby, and the last girl that would be born into our family since that day over 30 years ago. If Bo hadn't had to good sense to adopt his step-daughter, Kimmy (Princess, to me) and share her with us we would have nothing but boys for the last 30 years! As it is, Kimmy is an adult, so all the youngsters in the family are male. I would later have two sons, Tanya would have two sons, Bo would have three sons (and our Princess) Shana would have a son and a step-son, and Amanda would have two sons and a step-son. In our family we throw out that "step" word most of the time. Son/step-son... either way it's a son so why waist any extra breath or complicate things? Also, Lila would raise three foster sons, so we had plenty of boyness to make up for all the earlier girlness, and my dad and Bo looked around one day and realized they were no longer outnumbered. Amanda was soon nicknamed Nana, to match Shana's nickname of Nona, and that was what both of them were called for many years of their lives. "Here come Nona and Nana!" To me they were Baby and Hope.

Amanda was thrust into the chaos caused by Shana's weak lungs. She barely had a moment in the spotlight before Shana was on death's door again, unintentionally sucking all the energy from the family. Still, a newborn as beautiful as Amanda demanded contemplation. Like her sister before her, she was gorgeous. They are a study in lovely opposites. Shana was fair and bubbly. Amanda was dark and quiet. As she grew she gained an exotic quality that caused people to do a double take. She was not smile city, like Shana, but when she smiled it would melt a frozen heart. Mostly she looked at you with deep chocolate eyes, quietly, making you wonder what she was thinking about. In those eyes you could see an awareness, a curiosity, a bank of secrets you could not get to. I knew immediately that Amanda was an old soul.

Hope spent much of her babyhood with an intense, somehow amusing, scowl on her face. It wasn't that she was being hateful, though she was certainly capable of that. It just seemed to be the way her face naturally arranged itself. Even when she was truly in a bad mood, if you let her be, you were safe enough. One of our favorite cousins, Teresa Kay, brought Hope a Care Bear shirt. It had a cloth flap that you could flip from "Today I feel Cheerful" (with an image of Cheer Bear) to "Today I feel Grumpy" (with an image of Grumpy Bear.) I confess that one of my favorite things to do was to switch my nieces shirt to "Grumpy". To me, it suited the scowl on her face, but it always made her, well, Grumpier. So, It became a game for me, trying to distract her enough to switch the shirt to Grumpy without her noticing. Sometimes she busted me and yelled, "Hey! Stop that!" Sometimes I was quick enough and sly enough to get by with it, briefly. She would eventually notice, and there was always heck to pay! She knew exactly who had done that to her shirt and she came after me quarreling as hard as she could and shaking her finger at me. I would pretend innocence, but I don't think I ever fooled her. It was wonderful though when she began to smile more. I remember the absolute joy I felt at getting a photo of a genuine smile on that lovely little face. Eureka! We loved her deeply and dearly, cheerful or not.

When she got a little older, Hope took a look around her and picked up the worries of the world. She didn't express one second of jealousy over Shana's unfortunate limelight, but instead, out of a great love for her sister, her mother, her family, Hope switched places with Shana. Hope became the big-little sister. She showed deep concern for Shana and would fetch cold cloths for her fevered head, bring her glasses of water or juice. It wasn't long before the vibrant little sister had outgrown the less healthy big sister and they looked their switched roles. Some people refused to believe that Shana was older than Amanda.

First thing in the morning, she would come into the living room, wearing her nightgown and a scowl. Often I was already attempting to get the knots out of Shana's hair, but Hope's would have to wait until she was more awake and less grumpy. I told Shana many mornings that she must have made the hair fairy angry because she woke up with the messiest hair on the planet. I would smile at Hope and wish her a good morning. In a very froggy little voice she would drag out, "Gooood moornin'." That froggy voice was one of my very favorite sounds.

When she was about three, I was staying at Lila's and was snuggled in bed with the two little girls, trying to get them to go to sleep. Hope begged for one story too many. I was practically nodding off myself, so I suggested, "Why don't you tell me a story?" I was sneakily thinking I could go to sleep while she was talking and then she'd go to sleep as well, but her cute little girl voice whispered, "A man came home... to see his wife and children...but there was bloooood all over the floor... and there was blooood all over the walls..." We got up and had chicken noodle soup and ice cream and watched some t.v.

She was about 12 when I made the mistake of telling her she had been "Amanda Hope-For-No-More". I thought it was funny because she was the baby of the family and my sister did get a sterilization procedure not long after Hope was born. But I think I seriously hurt her feelings at the time, and I wanted to be able to suck those words right back into my lungs. 

She is different these days; almost all smiles but less healthy. It's as though all the illnesses that skipped her as a child have come calling on the adult she now is. She gets really sick, really quickly. It's frightening. She's been rushed to the ER. She's battled sepsis and many strep infections. These days it's sometimes Shana's turn to be concerned.

Today Amanda Hope is a lovely wife and mother. She has a husband and three boys. She's still ultra responsible. She's a hands on mom and keeps her kids as straight as arrows. She loves deeply and laughs freely. I haven't heard her froggy early morning voice in too many years... Maybe I should call her some morning at about 6am, just to hear that croaky "Gooood moornin'." That lovely sound would still be a joy to my heart, because in reality she is my "Amanda HOPE-For-Many-More".

Photo: Amanda, after she learned how to smile
Photo By Skitch 

SHANA

Photo: Shana and Skitch

THEN (mostly):

Three months after I hit the ripe old age of 13, Lila gave birth to Shana. I'd recently read several historical romance novels by the genre-pioneering author Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. My favorite was a spicy novel called "Shanna". I loved the name so much that, when Lila told me she was pregnant, I thought, "I wish she would name her Shanna." I was on a roll with predicting the sexes of babies. I'd only missed once in all my long 13 years, and I was certain Lila was carrying another daughter. I told her as much, but I did not suggest the name because I was equally certain she would never take the advice of a child on naming a child. When she called a few weeks later and told me, "If this baby is a girl, I think I'll name her Shana," it seemed like a miracle. I decided that I had wished that beautiful name on my niece so hard that it somehow pushed into Lila's mind. I've taken secondary credit for it ever since.

Shana was a gorgeous baby, and unlike Tanya and Bo, she didn't intimidate me. I was older, more practiced, and much better at appreciating babies this go 'round. I strove to be her second momma. Shana was bubbly, full of life and joy, and I loved her so dearly that I soon called her nothing but "Baby."

Soon the family discovered that Shana had asthma. She suffered one hard bout after another with bronchitis or pneumonia. Many nights, Lila stayed with us in order to have help with all three kids. Li and I would stretch out on either side of Shana and think about sleeping. Through the night, Shana's chest would heave so violently that it often seemed to be a separate entity from the rest of her. It was as though her muscles were forcing her to take just one more breath. I often found myself breathing in the same unnatural rhythm, praying between each convulsion of Shana's muscles, praying for the next pull of air. In the dim light, my eyes would meet my sister's and our souls would speak the fears that our mouths could not utter...

"What if she stops?"

"Could life ever go on?"

When she was healthy, life was golden. Shana lit up the darkest room with her smile, her bubbly way, and later, her constant mispronunciations. She had this delightful habit of accidentally using words we were not supposed to use. They always sounded so out of place falling from her cherubim lips. She pronounced "Roscoe" (a favorite uncle) as "Asshole" and would yell that name at anyone that reminded her of Roscoe, which unfortunately was any medium aged man with brown hair and a beard. I can remember running down the street with Lila, cupping our hands over Shana's mouth while she twisted her head and screamed her uncle's name at some confused guy that certainly was not her uncle, and probably didn't deserve verbal abuse from an 18 month old. My dad got a kick out of telling Shana to say, "I'm a smart feller." Inevitably she told him, "I'm a fart smeller." Nothing could have been less funny to my mom, or funnier to my dad. He'd laugh until his eyes disappeared in folds of wrinkles.

Shana was a brilliant baby (and is a brilliant lady. She made the Dean's List repeatedly in college) but those days foreshadowed a lifetime of twisted words. She never quite got the hang of a brilliant vocabulary. For example "specific" often still comes out "pacific". As a child, she told her mother they tried to make her eat "fruit fox tails!" at school. (Investigation discovered it was actually fruit cocktail.) And, unlike her very deliberate brother, Shana has always been good at "accidental funny." As a babe, she leaned in her mother's arms, out over a casket, and said, "Shhh. Papaw's sleeping...Boo!" She then laughed delightedly and added, "I scared Papaw to death!" She turned heads with her beauty, with her joy, with her malapropisms, and with her "accidental funny." She turned heads!

Shana's first sentence to me came from a song. I was singing along with the radio. "Don't you want me, baby? Don't you want me, ooh?" And Shana, who was "Baby", sang back, "Don't you want me, Dee Dee?"

Shana is now an adult and a very devoted mother. I've lost count of how many times she's made it through pneumonia. Thankfully, she is like my mother in that she's much tougher than she knows. Her greatest battle came when she had her son. High blood pressure, early inducement, an emergency c-section, a spotty epidural, she fought them all... And won. May God keep her winning, for I still feel the same way I did when she was tiny. "What if she stops?" I don't know what I'd do without her bubbly smile, without her created words, without her accidental funny, without her gigantic heart loving me every day. She loves fiercely and forever. Without her "could life ever go on?" I pray God that Lila and I never find out!

Photo: "Baby"

BEBO

Photo: Baby Johnny, Tanya, and Skitch

Then (mostly):

        
When I was nine years old, The Lord, Life, and Lila Ann gave me a nephew, Johnny. I was growing up in a family of mostly females and a boy was something to celebrate! Not because boys were better than girls, no not at all, but because boys, for us, were scarce. My dad, for many years, was the only guy in our world. The poor fellow weathered mood swings, swam through lace and ribbons, and let us "fix his hair." When Johnny arrived he became the only boy our family had been graced with since my father was born and the only boy it would have until I gave birth to my first son, over a decade later. Mother had four daughters. Lila would have three daughters and one son. Johnny and Dad were long outnumbered!

Because he shared a name with his father we called him "Little Johnny" or "Little John" when he was a kid. He now largely goes by "Bebo" or "Bo." Johnny" is still his dad's name, to most of us. Back in the day, Little Johnny was a smiley kid that loved to be silly. He was awesome at Donald Duck impersonations and Scooby Doo recaps. He was the number one fan of The Dukes of Hazzard, which is probably how he wound up with the nickname "Bo". For many years, my mother despaired that she'd never figure out what his face looked like because he was so often tail-up, rolling around in the floor, tumbling, twisting. Looking back, there is little doubt that he had some hyperactivity going on inside that bony little frame. Despite his antics and over-the-top entertainment choices, that kid harbored a subtle sense of humor. Like a good bottle of wine he was bold and dry, even way back then. When he was about four years old, he picked up a gray kitten and carried it through the house singing, "I'm gonna wash that gray right out of your hair." My sister had to stop him from shampooing the cat. A four year old singing a Clariol Loving Care commercial to a gray kitten is funny enough, but I've always felt that he got it. That he knew just why it was funny, that the cat was supposed to be gray, that four year old kids aren't supposed to dwell on gray hair, that cat's hate a bath. Like my dad, Bo has the best sense of humor, and it has only improved with age.

He spent his days surrounded by women, but, Bo held a quite sort of masculinity that could never be denied. He played with dolls and picked out things from the Avon book just like we did, but he had a penchant for mud that none of us shared, and he liked to take things apart, to play with cars and trucks, and to stare at pretty girls. Yep, he was definitely different. He once fell asleep at my house only to wake up with make up on and his nails painted. I was a bit of a prankster. (And I'd hidden the nail polish remover.) But luckily for him (and for me) my nephew was never one of those uptight men that was afraid of sandals or the color pink. In the tradition of his grandfather, Little John knew he was every inch a guy even when he was covered in foundation and blush. I've always loved that about him and I'm grateful my sons have displayed the same confidence. Still, it was pretty awesome watching him growl around the house looking for the missing nail polish remover. 

As a teen he became Bebo (a nickname bestowed upon him by his new step-father.) Bebo was the workingest son-of-a-gun you'd ever met. I've long felt he inherited that from my daddy too. That nephew of mine always had an odd job going and a dollar in his pocket. He found his way around a car engine before he was old enough to drive. I remember him working on a Blazer for me when he was 15. I depended on him even then for those crazy mechanical things that have never made any sense to me. He poked, and prodded, and crawled around under that thing and soon had it working. And this after several grown men had given up on it!

Bo understands family, he understands family with a capital F. There was a time in my life when I felt that mine had turned away from me, that I'd been disowned. Bo visited me when everyone else seemed to be looking the other way. He came to the museum where I worked and talked to me. I remember three consecutive statements best: "It's all going to be okay. You already knew our family was crazy. And why in hell did that chick at the ticket booth sell me this guidebook that doesn't guide me anywhere?" And that's my Bo. He's supportive, pragmatic, and as funny as a bad case of hiccups in math class!

These days, Bo is working hard at two jobs to support those he adores, his lovely wife and four gorgeous kids. But he still finds time to make me laugh at family gatherings, to share a story now and then, or to stick his head under the hood of my car when it's misbehaving. All that doll playing paid off and he's one of the finest fathers I've ever seen. He loves his daughter and three sons like there is no tomorrow. He loves them and his wife with words, with time, with money, and with all his heart and everything he is. And they (and I) return that love.
Thank God for my Be-be Bo-be!

Photo: "Little Johnny"