My mother is now in the Summerland with her other kin. She was born in the Missouri Ozarks where her mother named her as a hint to her heritage. Her name was Fairy Lee.
Her father was around while she was young, but left one day never to return, leaving her mother pregnant with her youngest brother. She, a child in the middle, wondered what just happened.
She grew up in a tiny town, watching her littler brothers and sisters while her mother worked. They loved their sister Fairy, with her ladylike touch and ability to make everything a little nicer.
Everyone who knew her said there was always something special about little Fairy Lee. Whether it ws her startlingly dark hair, pale skin and big brown eyes, her brilliant mind or her wistful smile, no one could ever say exactly what it was that made her so special.
She never spoke about it, but she knew she was different. She knew things before others, she was able to sense a situation before it happened, giving her the ability to comfort those who needed it most, congratulate the people who finished second in the contest while the winner gloated.
She was so shy, her brothers started calling her Flower after the lovely little skunk in "Bambi." They called her that the rest of her life.
She had big plans for her life. She knew she was meant for more than her little town could offer. She was Harvest Queen her senior year of high school, and she was named valedictorian of her graduating class and received a college scholarship.
Providentially, a well-to-do aunt and uncle offered to let her live with them and go to college. They paid her fees to join a sorority, smiling secretly as they did so. They knew her true heritage, as did the elder women of the sorority. Her first day there, she was gently taken aside and told that from now on, she would be referred to as Lee, that her first name gave too much away about her true heritage.
She was stunned.
"Yes, they call us the special sorority for a reason. Each girl here as a special gift, left by her father. Did you father look like any of these men?"
As they opened the big black book, she saw several men she had seen often in her tiny town, and one that made her gasp.
"That's my father," she said.
"We know," the women said.
As she got her degree, she honed her skills as best she could with the teaching provided in the sorority house. When her sister was old enough, she came to the college too, but while she was lacking Fairy Lee's skills, she could sing like a nightingale.
Fittingly, Fairy Lee got a degree in history. After her graduation, her father came to see her and offered her a place to spend the summer -- his home in a tiny Arkansas Ozark town.
She loved it there. One moon-drenched night, she met her man. She knew immediately he was hers forever and nothing anyone could say or do could change her unshakable faith that they would marry.
They said their "I dos" in a tiny ceremony, hurried because the new life within her wouldn't wait, and started their life together.
They moved to a bigger city where no one could know her past or her gifts. Their sons were handsome, but it was her only daughter who got the gifts from both sides of the family.
Fairy stayed home with her children until they were well established in school. They couldn't quite say why their mother was different from all the their friends' mothers, but knew she was.
We thought maybe she was the Tooth Fairy, I mean the name was there, but all we got was a little smile and a "don't be silly."
That is not a denial.
My cousins loved my mother. They called her "Aunt Fairy" and everyone I knew who knew her always spoke of what a lady she was, show she could always make them feel better than anyone else.
As we got older, my mother began teaching elementary school. She choose to work in the poorest areas, places where children needed a her gifts -- and maybe a little magic -- simply to get by.
Oddly, she never went back to her hometown, not for weddings, funerals or class reunions. She would simply stay away.
Oddly, she never went back to her hometown, not for weddings, funerals or class reunions. She would simply stay away.
She chose her friends carefully, dressed beautifully and knew her sons and daughter would always love and care for her.
She lived long enough to see grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren, but one day she could hear her distant kin calling her to come home.
She left, taking a little sparkle with her when she left.
I know she's with family members now, spending sun soaked days in their small town in the Summerland.
I miss her every day.
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