Brown Betty
If you’re lucky enough to have the person in your family who knows everything, remembers all the tiniest details of the past, recalls the names of all the distant relatives, arranges the get-togethers, cooks incredible meals, makes the effort to keep in touch with everyone, tells and re-tells hilarious stories from it all, then maybe you know the sort of person my Aunt Betty was.
Early last August I knew deep down that she didn’t have much time left. I refused to really wrap my head around it, though. I had spent a week with her over Mother’s Day just a few months earlier. I could see the health issues, but she did cover them up pretty well. I knew she hadn’t felt so great for quite a while. Yet I still couldn’t fathom the notion that her time with us was so quickly nearing an end.
I flew in to Charlotte on a Tuesday night and stayed at her house until the following Sunday, just to get in a little more time with her. I arrived pretty late, but she was still awake, in her bed, and had been talking with her daughter Donna.
Donna stepped out to greet me and gave me a big hug. She told me Betty was awake and looking forward to seeing me. When I walked into her room, she weakly rose up from her pillows, arms outstretched for a hug. She said in her sweet, melodious voice, “Hey, baby!”
After a really nice hug, I stood by her bed while Donna took a seat upon it. She kept urging me to get a chair and sit down. I really didn’t need to sit, having sat nearly all day, but she wouldn’t have it. That’s a clue as to how strong her empathy was. The sight of someone she perceived as uncomfortable made her so uncomfortable, she felt she had to change it. I had learned from nearly 50 years with her, there was never any point to arguing over such. “No” was not an answer she easily accepted.
The Golden Girls played at a low volume on her tv set. The three of us chatted for a good, long while, often laughing. Her memory was as sharp as ever. I loved asking her to tell me stories about when she and my mom were kids, of which she seemed to have an endless supply. She grew tired easily, though, and the last thing I wanted was to exhaust her in any way.
I tried to be helpful during my stay, frequently swapping out the tiny bottle of water next to her bed with a cold one from the fridge. She liked a paper towel to be wrapped around it in a particular way, held on by a rubber band. Mindful to avoid being too annoying, I tried to offer anything she might like to eat. She had no appetite at all, though. The only thing I know she ate were a few bites of strawberry Jello with fruit inside, which someone visiting had brought by. She tasted the tiniest bit from a spoon and said, “That’s so good. Go get you some.”
As far as I know, it was the last thing she ate. She passed away the following Monday, one day after I kissed her cheek, thanked her as profusely as I could for everything, and tearfully whispered goodbye. Despite knowing what’s coming, there just is no avoiding the utter pain of loss. No final moments, no spoken words of love or gratitude ever feel sufficient.
This wasn’t my first time experiencing such grief. Both my parents and all my grandparents have passed. I know now more than ever that loss never gets easier to bear. I foolishly thought it might. My dad’s passing felt like the hardest thing imaginable. One thing it quickly made me realize was how safe he had always made me feel. Even on opposite ends of the country, I felt protected just knowing he was in the world.
But this one might have hurt even more. Or, at least, it hurt differently. Maybe because she had been there for me through all those other losses. She was so ever-present and reliable. Talking with her made me feel better about every loss… from Granny to Mama, to Uncle Ray, and especially Daddy.
She seemed to effortlessly know whatever it was someone else couldn’t do, and she would just step in and do it. She didn’t want recognition. She wholeheartedly loved to give of herself and to make other people happy. While there are plenty of wonderful, incredible people still in my life, nobody comes close to “filling in” the way she did. When a light that bright gets dimmed, you feel its void so very deeply.
I’m aware that I’m still on the rollercoaster ride that is grief, so I don’t let myself get too shaken by the low points or the tears. I’ve heard that you feel grief in proportion to how greatly you loved, so I linger with sadness when I feel it, remembering it’s a result of massive love.
That practice of looking on the bright side helps pull me up some of the steeper climbs. Plus, she’s left me with infinite glorious memories I can conjure at any time to remember how profoundly lucky I am to have had her play such a significant role in my life.
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She was my mom’s older sister, but she was so much more than an aunt to me… she genuinely was a third parent. What strikes me now, in the best possible way, is how it never occurred to me to question that. From the beginning, she was just always there, taking care of things any mother would, better than most mothers could. She always made me feel as much a child of hers as her two daughters. She did a million things she knew my mom couldn’t, yet there was never the slightest hint of obligation. All of it came from love… SO much love. And so much sacrifice. She was the ultimate caretaker, making life wonderful for all of us in countless tiny ways which could easily be taken for granted at the time, but now are so deeply appreciated.
“Brown Betty” is how I first remember referring to her. I was sitting on a bed while Granny pulled socks onto my feet. I had just heard her tell Mama, “Betty’s on her way.”
I asked her, “Brown Betty or Beet Betty?”
It’s how my kid brain distinguished the two Bettys I knew. “Beet Betty” was Granny’s niece-in-law who frequently brought by beets from her garden, which Granny would wash, cook, and pickle to exquisite deliciousness.
Granny, highly amused by the new moniker I had just bestowed, affirmed that it was indeed “Brown Betty,” my Aunt Betty Sue, who was on her way, which made me happy. She was one of those people you just know is among your favorites without giving it a thought. My instincts have always been pretty strong in that regard.
The “brown” was because she was never without a glamorous looking tan. She had pretty, fluffy, light brown hair. She drove a creamy, “light saddle” colored mid-70s station wagon that could have come directly from The Brady Bunch. She often wore brown blouses, tan slacks, brown shoes, and she carried a brown purse. Brown was very much the in-color of the day.
One of those glorious memories that springs to mind was a time she helped me face my fears. It was at the Cleveland County Fair in the early 1980s. I was probably 5 or 6 years old, and I LOVED going to the Fair every year. It seems so quaint now, but it was a very big deal to us at the time. Every kid got a free ticket at school, and Betty’s well-connectedness in Shelby meant she had a seemingly endless supply of free admission tickets for herself and Granny. So, every year, the two of them would pick a night to take Donna and me to the Fair. Donna, 2 years older, was the person I idolized most in the world, which meant she was frequently annoyed by me. In other words, we were just as much brother and sister as her mom was a second mom to me.
One thing Donna did, though, that I could only watch in wonder from afar, was ride the big scary rides. She seemingly had zero fear of any of them, whereas I only had fear of all of them. I imagined bolts breaking loose, seats flying, people screaming in abject horror. The actual screams from the riders, however, did sound pretty joyful, and Donna would always return to us euphoric, eager to ride again.
No amount of wanting to be more like her, though, assuaged my fears. I happily stuck to kiddie rides like the merry-go-round. The wildest I was willing to get was the Scrambler or the Tilt-a-Whirl, which would spin each seat around at a dizzying pace while undulating them all around a giant circular track. I really loved the swimmy-headed dizzy sensation of all that spinning around. Plus, those rides seemed to either have no music or much gentler sounds, which I preferred to the roaring hard rock of the wild, scarier rides.
One of those nights, I watched Donna gleefully plummet down the yellow Giant Slide. You would have to climb dozens of stairs to reach a platform that stood around a hundred feet up in the air. A man up there would hand you a “mat,” which was a burlap sack. He would assign you one of the bumpy lanes and down you would sail. I was, of course, extremely uneasy with the notion of its height, but it seemed way less frightening than any of the other, bigger rides. Everyone sliding down looked like they were having the time of their lives. Something in me that year wanted to be a big boy, so I told Betty I wanted to try it.
She tore off the number of tickets it cost. I handed them to the taker, and I headed up those stairs with Donna. A sense of dread and worry seemed to skyrocket with my every step. I don’t know if I hadn’t yet fully grasped the concept of gravity or if my ability to picture horrific scenarios was just too strong. I seemed to believe that if I sat down on that potato sack, I’d go flying so fast, I might wind up in Gastonia. When I turned around and saw the tiny people down below, I immediately began walking back down the stairs. Quiet tears of disappointment started to fall. I was not going to be able to do this, not this year.
Betty knew better. She handed over some tickets for herself and was already halfway up the stairs before I met her on my way down. “I’ll hold on to you. You won’t go anywhere.” she said, firmly. So, with her climbing right behind me, I turned and went back up those stairs to the very top. We sat together on a single sack, her arms wrapped tightly around me. As we pushed off, my fears quickly turned to exhilaration. My face told her how much I loved it, and she giggled her delightful laugh, saying, “See? I knew you’d like it if you’d just try it.”
She encouraged me to give Thunder Road a try at Carowinds a year or so later. It was a colossal wooden coaster there at the time, not unlike the one they ride at Wally World near the end of National Lampoon’s Vacation. Donna, of course, couldn’t get enough of it. I could hardly stand the thoughts of it, but I had been convinced to climb into a seat next to Betty. As the train clicked up the 90-foot hill, she covered me with one leg and an arm while I squeezed the absolute hell out of the spongy lap bar holding me in.
Again, what I felt was a rush of breathless joy, pure exhilaration. I remember so clearly the sight of her hair flying wildly, and the whoops and hollers of glee from behind her smile as we plummeted down that hill and whirled around the track. Once we were back on the ground, her boyfriend Jesse asked how it was. She held up my arm to show him my trembling hand. “He’s a nervous wreck, but he loved it.” She was right.
Other fond memories take me back to riding in her station wagon, which she drove until I was at least in high school. It was mostly a treat, though she did have the terrible habit of smoking well into her golden years. As her passengers, we curiously seemed to always sit in the back seat, even when the front seat was unoccupied. We’d get yelled at, though, if we dared roll down the window for a breath of fresh air. “It’ll mess up my hair!” Her driving was slow and careful, with that cigarette poised between her fingers at the 2 o’clock position on the wheel. She’d often click the long nails of her thumb and ring finger while the mellow sounds of country music gently played from Shelby’s AM station, WOHS. The strongest image I have from inside that car, though, was her gear stick, which was a solid column of rubber bands. Like the one on her water bottle, she used them for everything. It’s something Donna lovingly addressed at her funeral, so I think of her every time I see one.
She cussed a lot, too, in a fun, very PG-13 kind of way. I think my favorite occurrence of that happened one day when she was waiting to turn left into the Hardee’s parking lot, and the stream of oncoming traffic seemed endless. “Well, piss, piss!” she said, growing irritated by the wait. It struck me as such an odd but funny thing to say, I burst out laughing. Remembering it still makes me smile. I learned all my early cuss words from her, as she was frequently yelling at other drivers on the road, from behind closed windows, of course. I asked my dad once, “What is a bastard?”
His response was, “Who’d you hear that from? Betty?”
So many of my “firsts” were with her. She introduced me to loads of the great loves of my life, including giving me my very first record, the Grease soundtrack, which changed my life forever.
I saw the ocean for the first time with her, as I got to tag along on her family vacation to Myrtle Beach. She and her husband, Red, had one room. Myra (her older daughter), Jennifer (Myra’s best friend), Donna and I were in an adjoining one. Daddy had described to me how I was about to see water was so big, you couldn’t see the other side. I was spellbound by that when I finally saw it. I was smitten by the sand, too. Donna and I held hands facing each other as we made a game out of jumping over every tiny little wave that came ashore while Betty relaxed, adding on to her already lustrous tan. We dug around the sand for hours, building motes and making terrible attempts at castles. We were much better at drawing flowers, writing our names, and digging holes with our feet deep enough to hit the water table.
Beyond the glory of the actual beach, though, I got to witness Betty getting herself ready for the first time. She would brush her hair out while bending forward, so that when she stood it was teased into a brown cloud that stood nearly two feet above her head. It was one of the most shocking things I’d ever seen. “Oh my god! How did your hair get so big??” They all laughed at my reaction. It wasn’t the least bit out of the ordinary for them, but to me seeing that enormous hair turn into the hair I recognized in mere minutes was one more way she seemed capable of making magical things happen.
I had saved $37 to bring along with me, which she kept safe in her purse. I must have asked her a thousand times how much I had left, as there were so many things I wanted to buy. I clearly went way over that budget, but she never said a word about it. Anytime I asked, there was still enough left.
I had to have one of the t-shirts you could design for yourself by picking from available transfers. Right in front of you, they would assemble the designs onto your chosen shirt and press them permanently on with a huge ironing machine. They could even add on letters to spell your name if you wanted. It didn’t take much to impress me.
I bought souvenir tchotchkes to take back to Mama, Daddy, and Granny. Twenty of those dollars were spent on a huge beach towel that read, “Flash ‘em a Coppertone Tan,” with a cartoon dog pulling down a little girl’s bathing suit to reveal her tan-line. I only wanted it because Donna wanted it, and she had built me up by telling me all about it before I even saw it for the first time. It was the biggest towel I had seen in my life, and I loved it instantly.
I’m holding it in a photo taken of us on the beach during that trip. (Red had carved “BETTY” into the sand, though this picture cut it off).
I still have that towel. though. 😊
She took me to see fireworks for the first time in my life, too. When the Cleveland Mall opened in Shelby in 1982, there was a big July 4th celebration in its parking lot (well, “big” for Shelby). Donna and I sat upon a quilt on the hood of the station wagon. I remember being dazzled, though a little terrified, of those gorgeous explosions. I couldn’t get over how much it looked like those fireballs were going to fall right onto me. I kept fighting the urge to duck.
The first phone number I memorized was to Suttle’s Drug store, where she had worked since she was a teenager. She stopped by Granny’s house one day after work, as she always did. Mama and I were there while Daddy worked, as we nearly always were. She handed me a bag of items I had requested with a simple, “Here you go.”
Granny, puzzled, asked, “When did he ask you to bring him that?”
Betty said, “He called me at the drug store.”
Granny then wanted to know, “Ray, how did you know what number to dial?”
I pointed to the white Suttle’s bag, of which there were plenty around the house. It had the number emblazoned upon it in red lettering.
(The number contained double 77s followed by double 22s. Granny’s & Mawmaw’s phone numbers had double 77s as well, and weirdly I always loved that detail. In any event, 77 is my number for Betty now. Anytime I see it, I think of her, and it feels like she’s letting me know she’s with me.)
My first job was at Suttle’s Drug store, too, thanks in large part to her. She worked as their bookkeeper, and she wrote my first paycheck. She cashed it for me on the spot, then wrote my name and the date on the first dollar I ever earned. She eventually gave me her first dollar too. I keep them both together in a memory book along with that hand-written check stub.
She never held back criticism, especially of us kids. I went through several phases of bleaching my hair blond for the summer. She caught a glimpse of it one day when Donna and I stopped by her office at the drug store, and she proclaimed in front of everyone, “Your hair looks like shit!” It only made me laugh, though, because she had the rare ability to be amusing and charming even when she was cranky, at least to me.
She made the best macaroni & cheese in the world. It was so good, it would be the one thing I would choose if I could pick my final meal on earth. I tracked down a casserole dish identical to the one she always used for making it. I try and make it like hers every year for the holidays. It’s close, but, again, she had a way of infusing everything she made with irreplicable magic. Even Granny, who was the best cook I think I have ever known, couldn’t get it quite as good as Betty could.
At her funeral, Myra had given the pastor a story to share that I think epitomized who she was, especially when it came to food. She was having some work done to her house a few years ago, and the men who were doing it barely spoke a word of English. Myra stopped by to find them all sitting around Betty’s kitchen table eating. She had insisted they take a break and get a bite to eat. And, like I said, she was never one to take “No” for an answer.
I really miss the long chats we used to have on the phone. She was a naturally gifted talker, so when we spoke, almost every week, those talks would often last over an hour.
When we were kids, she would take Granny grocery shopping every Thursday after she was off work. If she ran into someone she knew at the store, you could count on her standing and talking for a really long time. This particular store, Harris Teeter, would roll the carts of bagged items outside. You would drive around, show the employee your receipt, upon which the cashier would have written the cart number. That person would then load the groceries into your car while you waited. I can’t count the times Granny sat out in the car fuming because her ice cream was melting while Betty was inside chatting away.
She never ran out of stories, especially later in life when it came to her grandchildren. I have never known anyone who loved grandkids more than she loved hers.
She was just the best, and she will always be one of my favorite people in the world. I’m so grateful to have been loved by her. I know she knew that I loved her, but I hope she knew how greatly I admired her, too. I will love and miss her forever.
Today, May 2nd, is her first birthday in the great beyond. She would have turned 83. Happy Birthday, Aunt Betty Sue! 💙🌼
She would’ve been so moved to read this—your words, your heart—and to see just how deeply she mattered. But I truly believe she already knew, because you loved her out loud, in all the ways that count.