Wildly Beautiful Lives

This is my Uncle Larry and Aunt Angie from way back when. I'm guessing the 1980's. She is my mom's little sister who passed away after nine grueling years of fighting cancer, two years ago today, this day to remember love.

I cherish this picture of them. Story behind it: I believe the way I heard it told was that we all (my Mom is one of five kids) in all our big family-ness were in Des Arc at my great grandparent's, Mama & Daddy Hambrick's, for a gathering of some kind. My Dad was the photographer and had lifted Aunt Angie against her will into this tree and had Uncle Larry nestle in for this priceless shot. They, Aunt Angie and Uncle Larry, ended up loving this picture. I do too.

Now onto the saddest story I know of.

When my mom was three, her mother died from complications after a hysterectomy at the age of 27. Aunt Angie was the youngest of five and only 18 months old when her mother died. After this tragedy, mourning the loss of his love, my grandfather, whom I never knew, took to drinking, eventually leaving the family to look for work and got so lost, he never came home to those five kids. They were left to be raised on the farm by their grandparents.

Just like most poor, hard-working, post-depression farmers, under Daddy Hambrick, my aunts and uncles worked hard, or should I say were worked hard. Real hard. They tended the crop, grew and picked cotton and were, as someone I met through my Aunt's funeral said, "Yeah, I remember...those (Butler) kids were worked hard and fed well, but that's about it."

My uncles called my Mom a "cotton whore" because she could out-pick the boys, so I'm told. Mama and Daddy Hambrick had the hardest of lives. Apparently Mama Hambrick would let my mom and her siblings know about it, too. The older three boys all waited until they couldn't wait any longer and left Des Arc without graduating high school for the military. Mom not only stayed, but graduated at the top of her class, homecoming queen, captain of the cheerleaders, all-state in basketball, a twirler and college bound.

Aunt Angie's path had a little more fun to it. She was Mama Hambrick's favorite. I'm guessing she was because she might have been the only sunshiny thing Mama Hambrick had ever really seen. But, Aunt Angie made it out, too. She followed my mom to Little Rock, who then had just left her first husband with my sister (two years old) in tow. The circumstances around that divorce have never truly been made clear to me. All I really know is that it didn't end well.

Raising a child, single and alone in the 60's makes me swell with pride to think about the gumption my mom must have had to muster to make it to business college at night and work during the day with a sweet little girl in the mix of all that. Working at the Senate in the bill room a while later, she was set up on a blind date with my dad by mutual friends. Dad was working for IBM. He wore slick suits, burst with charm, dabbled in Little Rock politics and they were right opposites in every way.

She was a yellow-dog Democrat from the Delta and he was a city-slicker Republican from Fort Smith. Funny thing about my parents, both my mom and dad had no real father figures growing up. Daddy Hambrick could count I guess, accept for the fact that one thunderstormy night in Des Arc, he looked out the window and saw the door to the chicken coup fly open, knocking furiously against the wood in the wind, letting the chickens escape. He ran out in the storm, saw lightening strike the tree next to the coup, and before he knew it, a large limb of that tree had fallen and struck him, paralyzing him forever from the neck down.

My dad's father was a war veteran. My grandmother was a nurse in the war. They met in Ozark, AR, and fell in love in a pressing whirlwind and some time later three boys came along. Even though, for the times, they seemed to be doing well by the world's standards, this grandfather, too, did well with the bottle.

When my dad and uncles were old enough to remember, there was a fight. Dad, the youngest, was swinging by himself in the back yard. My Uncle John, the oldest, had to intervene. She had grabbed the gun and was using it as a shield. She never used it, but, with such an uncertain future, my grandmother's brother's took them away. At times they (Dad and his brothers) were split up between her eight brother's and sister's to live. Just before or in the middle of all this, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In the 1940's if one was diagnosed with breast cancer, they just cut them off, sewed you up and the burned the puddin' out of ya with radiation. I'll never forget the day when I was a little girl, she unzipped her blouse, as a joke, to show the surrounding conversing adults that she truly had nothing there. They must have forgot about me or didn't care I was there, but when she did that, I saw her thin bare chest, ribs protruding and scarred from radiation. They all laughed at her joke, but I was mortified.

I tell all this because any time I think my life is hard or tough and I think about my mom and dad, my aunt and her nine-year struggle with cancer and all its complications, and others of similar story from this generation, I'm stopped dead in my thoughts of pity for my life or life circumstances. My parents weren't perfect, in fact, they were far from it. However, I truly believe they did the best they could with what they had and they busted their tales so we could have it better than they did, and better in every way, not just financially. And, we did.

My Mom rarely cries, but one of the most tender things I ever heard her say was, "Nothing makes me cry like when I think about my Mama."

Aunt Angie got to see all of her older brothers and sister grow up before her. She took it all in and I'm convinced she wanted the best parts of everything she saw in what good those around her had. And, that exactly what she got. She married Uncle Larry, they moved to North Little Rock, he started his own company from the bottom up and worked real hard to have it become something. And, it sure did. He worked, she sacrificed, they built it -- together.

Here is her eulogy:

The family of Angie Wood would like to thank you for honoring her memory by
your presence today. Angela Diane Wood, 58, of Little Rock died Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at Washington Medical Hospital (Seattle) of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She had been fighting her battle with breast cancer since 1999. Angie was known by everyone as a compassionate and selfless human being. She was friendly to all and will be missed by her family and friends. Her accomplishments include secretary/treasurer of Wood Painting Co., President of AD Wood, Inc., and partner of a retail clothing store. Angie is survived by her husband, Larry Wade Wood; two children, Amy Diane Lee and David Wade Wood; three grandchildren, Sophia, Lawson and Ruby Claire; one grandchild due in October; two brothers, Carlton and Bobby Butler; and one sister Delores Anne Milton. She was preceded in death by her brother, Rex Butler.

Oh, but there was so much more. To get a glimpse into her wildly beautiful life from those that loved her, you can visit caringbridge.org/visit/angiewood. She was like a second mother to me. My cousins have been and still are like my other brother and sister. Our moms, sweet, loyal sisters, made it that way on purpose. Aunt Angie, I love you, miss you and am better for knowing you.