Aunt Bessie’s Specs, by LaDonna Thompson

My family had moved to a more urban area of Kentucky, but my mother remained a hillbilly all her life.  Mountain folk are stubborn, and notoriously reluctant to discuss family matters.

We always spent at least two weeks every summer at the old homeplace, catching up with family and taking care of things around the house for my Aunt Bessie. I still chuckle when I think of the annual mucking of the outhouse my dad silently endured.

My Aunt Bessie was the matriarch of the family.  She was barely 5’2”, and though she be but little, she be fierce! I never saw her without an apron on, or without her little round glasses.  Those glasses vexed her by steaming up as she tirelessly cooked over an old, wood-burning stove.

Aunt Bessie was my great aunt, but she helped raise my mother, who is named for her. They shared a bed and lived in the homeplace with various relatives throughout the years. She was the only “grandmother” I ever knew, as my natural grandmother had passed away years before I was born.

I had been told my grandmother had died of a heart attack. My mother said she was hit by lightning. 

But one summer, Aunt Bessie and I were walking through the family cemetery when she said wistfully, “I sure have missed Lily since the day she was murdered. I loved her so much.”  

She quickly stopped talking and tried to pretend that she hadn’t said it.

“Murdered??” my eyes widened. 

But when I tried to look through those little old-lady glasses to see her eyes, she was as shocked as I was. There would be no squeezing any additional information from her. My questions met her resolved, hillbilly silence, in that moment and for the rest of her life.

As a child, I was troubled that my mother and her family had lied to me. As an adult, I imagine they were being protective, maybe of me, of my grandmother, or maybe the family members involved. 

My mother gave Aunt Bessie’s glasses to me, after she passed. I sometimes put them on and laugh at how much I am beginning to look like my her.  They bring to mind Aunt Bessie working away at that old stove, a great country cook. Much less often, they remind me of that walk through the cemetery. I know that no matter how many times I put on these funky little glasses, I will never be able to see the truth of what really happened. 

And I think I’m okay with that.