Daughters of the Shadow Men

An old photo seems to go with Memorial Day.  My Grandma Wilson arranged to have this photo taken of her, her last son Bill, and a bunch of her grandchildren who are all still alive except one, my sister LaRae. LaRae is on the left the third person down from the top, starting with Grandma, and the one on the left in the second row.  She looks kind of miserable.  My sister Linda is on the right next to the kid I am holding on my lap.  I look like the oldest and very responsible.  You might notice a resemblance between me and my Grandma.  I got her nose.  She always wore her hair long in a bun on top of her head.  That was just her.  She never thought she looked right any other way. 

Since I was always known for my acclaimed ability to talk to the spirits I will try to see if I can scare up LaRae.  I won't feel right passing through Memorial Day without talking to her. 

GERRY:  You must have been busy up in Utah all day.  I just saw that wonderful memorial entry your daughter Cheryl wrote and posted on the family site, along with a photo of you and your three grandchildren a while before you passed.  I could see she really missed you attending the wedding of that first grand daughter. 

LARAE: Oh, I was there, and wasn't she a beautiful bride? I have been very busy in Utah with my new great grandchild, too.  I am not about to miss anything.  That is one good thing about being this light weight, you can zip here and there with no problem.  As soon as somebody thinks about me strong enough, I can ride on in. 

GERRY:  How is Mother doing this year?

LARAE:  Oh, she has gathered in Boulder.  She thinks she had the finest funeral a woman could ever have and now she's lying under the perfect tombstone. 

GERRY:  I love this old photo, don't you?  Ann and Linda both look funny in their print dresses.  How is Grandma Wilson?

LARAE: She is good.  She and Mother are busy getting reacquainted.  They have got a lot to talk about.  Not much to hide in the family any more.  We haven't got husbands to hold us back any more, so we can all zip around pretty fast.  Those husbands were a good excuse to stay stuck in the mud. 

GERRY: Are you all divorced, even Grandma? 

LARAE:  More or less.  We will do anything to progress, divorce if necessary.  We don't call it divorce.  We just call it taking a vacation from a relationship that was bogged down by irreconcilable differences! We certainly are not going to go through all that pain of passing and sit and quarrel up here. You see death was my divorce which was not necessary since I knew how to divorce.  I just did not figure out how to get along without marriage.  Father is still trying to learn that.  But Mother takes off on a gallop anytime either one of her husbands comes near.  And this time she has got Grandma right by her side. It was very hard for Grandma to stop being Grandpa's slave.  But Grandma says she did not know she could be this happy alone in heaven.  She feels like a young girl again! 

GERRY: She always was a sweetheart.  It was being raised in that damned polygamy that messed up her thinking.  When Grandpa started acting like an old womanizer she couldn't bring herself to get out of the marriage. 

LARAE:  Yes, she feels very sorry for the polygamous wives right now.  You know her niece may be the grandmother of Warren Jeffs.  That would disturb anybody, he has committed so many crimes. A woman has to take responsibility for enabling a man to behave badly.  If he does not change his ways no matter what she does, she has few options except to leave, just like those poor wives of polygamy who finally leave, even if they have ten children, when they become indignant enough.  Grandma's inability to take steps to stop spousal abuse probably affected all of us.  So we talk about that whenever the three of us get together, along with other relatives who deal with the Wilson family problems. 

GERRY:  I have polygamy on my mind and all that suffering going on in Texas. Now a high court has ruled against them taking all those kids out of compound, and an article here is saying that fighting polygamy effectively has been set back ten years by the Texas raid.  But I think they were just so indignant about them coming in there and building that compound under false pretenses, they could not contain themselves.  What a mess. 

LARAE:  Polygamy is a Wilson family issue, it is a Mormon issue, so we all have to deal with it, born in Utah and tussling with Mormonism our whole lives.  Mother and I and Grandma discuss it a lot along with the rest of Mother's brothers and sisters when they feel comfortable doing it. You know me, I love to analyze.  Grandma Wilson thinks I have a wonderful mind.  You and I are a lot alike in that regard.  We probably inherited that trait from the Kings, but we will deal with them on other visits.      

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