Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Partial to People

Elmwood Springs, Missouri

1978

Dr. Diggers had told Dena not to make any important decisions for as long as possible, that she needed to take a lot of time to think before she did anything.

After she found out about her mother, she did just that. She had a lot of things to think about. She felt sad, but mostly she felt as if she was not the same person she had been just a few weeks earlier. She realized that she did not know much about life at all. Everything she thought she knew as fact wasn’t. Everything she had believed was important wasn’t.

Today she was out in Aunt Elner’s backyard, walking along with her as she watered her tomato plants.

“Aunt Elner,” she said, “do you like people?”

“Oh, lands, yes, honey, sure, I do.” She cocked her head to the left. “Come to think of it, I guess you could go so far as to say that people are my pets. They just tickle me to death. There is nothing cuter to me than a pack of Brownies or Cub Scouts or a table full of oldsters. I used to make Norma and Macky take me up to Miss Alma’s Tea Room so I could sit there and watch all the little early birds come in for their supper.” Aunt Elner moved on down the row and looked up at the sky, which was turning slightly gray over to the west. “You watch, as soon as I water, it rains. Anyhow, I used to go to Alma’s and listen to them chattering away, cute as pie.” She chuckled. “And now, I’m an oldster and Miss Alma’s is gone, closed down … of course they have an early bird special out at Howard Johnson’s … but, yes, I like people.

“To tell you the truth, I feel sort of sorry for most of them. Some days I could just sit down and cry my eyes out … poor little old human beings—they’re jerked into this world without having any idea where they came from or what it is they are supposed to do, or how long they have to do it in. Or where they are gonna wind up after that. But bless their hearts, most of them wake up every morning and keep on trying to make some sense out of it. Why, you can’t help but love them, can you? I just wonder why more of them aren’t as crazy as betsy bugs.”

“Do you believe in God, Aunt Elner?”

“Sure I do, honey, why?”

“How old were you when you started believing, do you remember?”

Aunt Elner paused for a moment. “I never thought about not believing. Never did question it. I guess believing is just like math: some people get it right out of the chute, and some have to struggle for it.” Aunt Elner spotted something. “Hold on a minute, dear.” She slowly reached in her apron. “Don’t move.” She pulled out a lime-green plastic water pistol and aimed it at her cat, Sonny, just as he was about to pounce on a fat robin, busy eating birdseed. She hit Sonny in the back of his head and he took off. “Hate to do it but it’s the only thing that works. I can’t stand to see him get one of my birds.” She put the water pistol back in her apron. “It has a range up to sixty feet. Norma got it for me up at the Rexall. Oh, I know a lot of people struggle, wondering is there really a God. They sit and think and worry over it all their life. The good Lord had to make smart people but I don’t think he did them any favors because it seems the smart ones start questioning things from the get go. But I never did. I’m one of the lucky ones. I thank God every night, my brain is just perfect for me, not too dumb, not too bright. You know, your daddy was always asking questions.”

“He was?”

“I remember one day he said, ‘Aunt Elner, how do you know there is a God, how can you be sure?’ ”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said, ‘Well, Gene, the answer is right on the end of your fingertips.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, think about it. Every single human being that was ever born from the beginning of time has a completely different set of fingerprints. Not two alike. Not a single one out of all the billions is ever repeated.’ I said, ‘Who else but God could think up all those different patterns and keep coming up with new ones year after year, not to mention all the color combinations of all the fish and birds.’ ”

Dena smiled. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Yes, but, Aunt Elner, how do you know that God’s not repeating old fingerprints from way back and reusing them on us?’ ” She laughed. “See what I mean? Yes, God is great, all right. He only made one mistake but it was a big one.”

“What was that?”

“Free will. That was his one big blunder. He gave us a choice whether or not to be good or bad. He made us too independent … and you can’t tell people what to do; they won’t listen. You can tell them to be good until you’re blue in the face but people don’t want to be preached at except at church, where they know what they are getting and are prepared for it.”

“What’s life all about, Aunt Elner? Don’t you ever wonder what the point of the whole thing is?”

“No, not really; it seems to me we only have one big decision in this life, whether to be good or bad. That’s what I came up with a long time ago. Of course, I may be wrong, but I’m not going to spend any time worrying over it, I’m just going to have a good time while I’m here. Live and let live.” Sonny started slowly inching his way back toward the fat robin and Aunt Elner pulled her gun out and aimed. “Sonny, one more move and you’re dead.”

Dena had to laugh in spite of herself.