Welcome to heaven Mrs. Mayfield

In the 90's I stayed with my stepfather's mother Virginia several times. She was a kind old lady who really only liked me, we got on rather well. My sister was too cute and not interested in her antiques and dotty ways and my mom was marrying her son and thus was not well-received either (it should be noted that she wasn't much for her son either... he had the audacity to wear jeans to Easter brunch!) At any rate, it was perfect for me. A slightly senile old lady from an aristocratic old family living in a house full of lovely things. Other 13 year old children had skate boards and Metallica, I had portraits of Civil War generals and stories of the distant Kennedy relation of my step-grandmother. Really, I was quite happy.

Virginia, was about 80 and drove a creamy yellow Lincoln Continental that her other Adonis like grandsons had nicknamed the "SS Virginia." Car and its driver were a menace to all of Springfield, MO (the place where she had lived her entire life.) Every day, she would pack into that huge car and drive about town running her own version of the Welcome Wagon. The car was quite worse for the wear after she had backed it out of the side of her narrow garage one too many times.

To complete her effect, she had a small white toy poodle whom she insisted was named "Jacques" although she could not pronounce the name she took great pride in the little French nod to culture and dignity.

Virginia was born into a prominent family, who were the founders of a local department store. Her parents lived in a lavish, craftsman style house on a tree-lined street in town. She would tell stories of her coming out party and the dances that they held on the wide front porch (whose windows retracted into the floor to ease the hot summers.)

In her late teens, she married "well" to a man who was for all intents and purposes the epitome of a douche bag. He was abusive and a womanizer and they divorced within 10 years of their marriage (not before having and traumatizing their son, my future stepfather.)

Virginia's wealthy, Catholic upbringing had not prepared her for the shame of being divorced in the 50's. Once a social doyenne, she was reduced by the social insult of a failed marriage. Her mother was not supportive and it seems was jealous of her doting father, this relationship seems to have become more strained after the divorce.

Unfortunately, the comfortable upbringing of her childhood did not carry into her adulthood. After the divorce and as her parents aged, their money waned. In addition, Virginia's brother was a terrible alcoholic who drank away a good portion of the family fortune (it was mentioned that at one low point in the 70's she opened the door of his car only to have numerous empty bottles of the only alcohol he could afford at the time, Listerine.) Despite this indignities, Virginia held her head high. She worked and lived with a sense of class that seems to be lost on my generation. Her meals (often cold meat sandwiches, with the crust removed and halved) were eaten on the Spode china she received as a wedding gift with sterling flatware and cut glass.

A creative woman, her home reflected an imagined opulence. The familial trappings of wealth came to reside in her tiny little ranch (still located in a lovely neighborhood even though the rent was only $250 dollars a month.) Her skills as a social butterfly did not go to waste, but were parlayed into a business welcoming newcomers to town with packets of advertising and coupons.

She maintained her place at society functions by volunteering and through sheer force of will, perhaps diminished but no less proud. As we polished silver at her dining room table, she would tell stories of how her wealthier friends wouldn't lend their sterling tea sets for fundraisers and so she would proudly offer her Gorham six-piece set for whatever altar society meeting, sale or auction it was needed for never realizing or perhaps caring that the sale of just some of her finery would have alleviated the masked poverty she lived in.

The last summer that I saw her, I stayed with her for two weeks to help her have a garage sale. The first two days were spent carting things from the attic, the next two days selling them in the back yard and the rest of the two weeks, she and I drove all over town. We took an inventory of each of her families former residences. Her parent's large home (she had to sell it after their death to pay for their dying years and her brother's embarrassing condition.) Her maternal grandmother's home, a lavish Victorian in a lovely part of town and her paternal grandparent's home or at least the site of it, they had donated the home to a local hospital which some time later had torn the mansion down for a parking lot. We even drove past the condo of her now-deceased former husband. The woman he had left her for still lived there (a muttered "whore" could be heard as we passed her unit.) It was a strange and rich two weeks.

Almost 20 years later I fondly remember the time I spent at her house.

Sadly, Her son informed me that she had died several years ago and that he had acquired the Gorham, Spode, paintings, antiques, etc. He didn't mention her really, just the things... Sad.

Today, as I was driving, I remembered a detail that I am sure that I was too young to really understand. Once, Virginia mentioned that she had considered taking Jacques and herself out into the forest where they would starve to death. At the time, coming from a family prone to sarcasm, I don't know that I gave it much thought, considering it a morbid joke. After all these years, I decided that she felt that it was really an option for her, no muss, no fuss, no burden. I think the only thing that kept her from it was the questions by those of her former social class and the doctrine of her now defunct Catholic faith. In my teen self-centered psyche I didn't make the connection to the profound loneliness that she must have felt.

Dearest Virginia, you were loved by me. Even though we knew each other for a few short years you were important to me. I am sure that you are in heaven, welcoming, as in life, newcomers t0 their now eternal home.