So a few days back my Aunt Ardy died.
I read in her obituary that her full name was Eleanor Ardythe Elmerick Rankin - I never knew this. I never actually wondered about the name Ardy until today in the shower. What kind of name is Ardy? Turns out, it's short for something even more amazing - the real questions should be 'what kind of name is Ardythe'? And what sort of name should follow Ardythe? Why Elmerick of course. Here is her picture:
Aunt Ardy was the soft-spoken matriarch of a family called 'the Rankins'. They were the largest family I knew growing up - my mom's brother Jack (crazy man who would say my name so loud whenever I would come into the kitchen through the carport door), his wife Ardy (quiet storm of her own who kept the family together with chore charts and night nursing) and 7 kids - 5 girls who stayed in one big upstairs room and 2 boys who stayed in another small room downstairs in a brick house on a hill in Aiken SC. Every other family I knew growing up had two kids, three at the most. They had 7, and compared to my childhood, they ran wild.
Their back yard was sandy, and I ate one of the only bologna sandwiches I would ever eat at a picnic table on their screened-in back porch. When we visited, we would sleep spread out on the living room floor, just inside the front door and steps from the brick stairs that we would sit on to pose for family pictures under the pine trees in their front yard.
Aunt Ardy played the guitar. Actually, I think I saw every Rankin play the guitar at one point or another, but she was always the leader. We would be sitting around and when there was a lull she would reach down from her chair and pick up the guitar and start singing some old 70s praise song - In my mind it was "it only takes a spark" or "seek ye first" but more likely it was "they'll know we are Christians by our love" - and all the kids would sing along in perfect harmony.
Anyway, here's a story I wrote a while back about when my family all got together and scattered the ashes of another one of my aunts - Aunt Dorothy. It's not really about Aunt Ardy, but she and her guitar are featured in this story. Here is Praise Songs for Aunt Dorothy:
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Praise Songs for Aunt Dorothy
We got the call...Aunt Dorothy had died.
She wasn't really my aunt. She lived with my real great Aunt Ruth, who was my grandfather's sister. They had lived with each other forever. They showed us pictures of Girl Scouts and canoe trips and world travel, and they were always together. For as long as I could remember, they shared a house somewhere in Florida with a ping pong table and an indoor pool out back that had some giant jet that would create a current that you could swim against and acted like a treadmill for breaststrokers and freestylers. This was weird because about Ruth and Aunt Dorothy were always old and I could never imagine them swimming, and definitely not into a giant water jet.
Aunt Ruth was short and round and loud. She gave us kids a hard time when we wanted to put ketchup on our dinner. She would sort of waddle around, and was always, definitely the driver of their Winnebago. Aunt Ruth was red headed, in hair and in mouth. I remember being a little scared of her, the ketchup hater.
Aunt Dorothy, on the other hand was tall. Quiet. Gray haired. Nice. The passenger in the Winnebago and the one in the front of the canoe in the old black and white pictures. I had this feeling that she was beautiful a long time ago, and she would shuffle around in the kitchen behind Aunt Ruth, get the ketchup quietly from the fridge door and set it near me on the table.
But she was young once. I saw a picture of her, black and white of course, in a sundress and a happy, content smile, not looking at the camera but just off--over her shoulder at something out of frame.
Aunt Ruth and Dorothy would come visit us in South Carolina and park their Winnebago at the KOA in Anderson. They rented a spot under the pines and mom and dad would drive us over from Clemson to see them. We'd play at the pool and wish for the Tombstone pizzas for sale at the little store there. My brother and sister and I would dash in and out of the Winnebago, up and down the wobbly stairs and through the weirdly flimsy door to try and open the latched kitchen drawers and cabinets. The giant captains driver seat was always so close to the steering wheel that even we couldn't squeeze in, but Aunt Dorothy's chair was plenty far enough from the dash for us to climb in and swivel around. They had party lights on a string that they would hang from the awning outside, and they would sit with my parents for hours in lawn chairs and swat away at the gnats under the stars.
When we got the call, I wasn't surprised. Aunt Ruth had died a while back (just like her to go first), and Aunt Dorothy had been on her own for several years, health declining, becoming smaller and quieter. She had left word that she wanted to be cremated, and her ashes sprinkled into the water somewhere. My mom and dad were in France, so my Uncle Jack took care of the details. Once they were ready, and my parents were back from their jet setting, they summoned all the kids to South Carolina for the memorial service. Most families would do this sort of thing in a church, but my Uncle Jack and his wife Ardy were this strange mix of leftover hippie, and charismatic Episcopalian, and so we had the service at a picnic shelter at the local lake.
It was a blazing hot South Carolina summer, and the day was filled with sweat and sun. Lake Keowee was bright and sparkling as Jen and I walked from the parking lot; gravel crunching under our shoes, past the grills on poles to the picnic shelter. The shade of the shelter was slightly cooler than standing in the sun, and we all stood around while my Aunt Ardy sang and played praise songs on her guitar. Some distant relatives were there from out of town, and we made small talk about Aunt Dorothy's life, and how hot it was. A family picnicked in the shelter next to us, kids splashed and yelled in the water down the way. There was more singing. My sideways glances at the family next door were met with curious looks of anticipation and wonder. Our group grew as more people arrived. We ate snacks. Then it was time.
Uncle Jack said a few words. My dad prayed. My mom cried a little. The kids in the water quieted down.
The shelter was a few steps from the water, and earlier my dad had pulled our family boat right up to a timber wall separating the grass from the water. It was deep there and the boat knocked gently against the wall in rhythm with Aunt Ardy and the praise singers.
When we had first arrived, the boat looked fine, sparkling blue and white against the lake water. But you see, my dad had forgotten to put the plug in the boat before he backed it into the water earlier at the ramp. This boat plug is important; when you are done boating for the evening, you unscrew the plug and take it out just after you pull the boat from the water on the trailer. All the bilge water that collects in the boat during the riding and skiing and jumping empties through this small hole behind you onto the road as you make your way back home, a long peeing stream of lake water along the asphalt.
But if you forget to put the plug back into the boat before you put it into the lake, the process is reversed, and the lake water slowly makes it's way into the bowels of the boat. There is always more lake than boat, and once Aunt Ardy had finished singing and we made our way over to the boat to scatter Aunt Dorothy, we realized it was well on its way to sinking.
No one seemed to panic because this was the sort of thing that wasn’t unusual with our family. We all stood on the wall next to the water and looked at the boat; Mom laughed a bit quietly behind her tears. Dad handed me the plug, and I pulled off my shirt and jumped in the water. The hole for the plug was at the bottom of the back of the boat, well under the waterline. It was tricky to screw it in underwater, but in very un-Grimes like fashion, I was able to get it in without dropping it into the murky depths. Once we were plugged up, my dad climbed in the boat, water up to his knees and started bailing. It only took a few minutes for the boat to regain buoyancy.
There were too many people gathered there that day to all fit in the boat, and we all knew that not everyone could go out on the water for the final send off, so my parents and Uncle Jack and Aunt Ardy, and my Uncle Al and his wife Kathy decided that they would go on behalf of the rest of us. We watched the boat go out on the lake from the shore, smaller and smaller into the sparkling sun.
The rest of us made small talk while we waited. The kids down the way went back to playing and shouting in the water. The family at the next shelter went back to eating their lunch. The trees swayed in the breeze and we sat in lawn chairs, swatting at the gnats.
After a few minutes, we saw the boat again in the distance, growing larger as it brought its passengers back toward us. They climbed out of the boat, back on dry land, giggling and...dusty. You see, it was windy on the lake that day. Someone, maybe my dad or mom, or Uncle Jack, well they opened the box. And it was windy. And the ashes were scattered more in the boat and on the passengers than in the water.
Typical Grimes family funeral.
