Eulogy for My Aunt

Georgia On My Mind

I looked it up a few days ago. The name, Georgia, means “Farmer.” I objected to this at first because I felt certain that it should mean, “Ordered One,” “Great Giver of Hospitality,” or “One Who Takes Road Trips Instead of Flying.”

I like to think of names as self-fulfilling prophesies yet this name didn't seem to fit the Georgia I knew. When I learned to read and discovered the world of the Southern Plantation Days, with its metaphoric white columns, live-oak trees laden with Spanish moss trailing soft fingers on the ground, and sculpted pineapples perched decisively on gate posts, I thought, “Georgia must be Southern.” Because I was still a little kid, I didn't yet know that Hospitality extended beyond the South. But I knew that Georgia had it.

Ironically it was Georgia herself who helped me learn these things. When my siblings and I were growing up, we had no television. Instead of brain-drooling hours in front of what our father called the “boob tube,” we did stuff. Well, first we read books and then we did stuff.

Every so often, like clockwork, although I can't remember whether it was for Christmas and birthdays or just for Christmas, a box would come in the mail, wrapped in brown kraft paper and mysterious. It would be filled with what we knew, once the wrapping paper was off, would be a book. But oh, the slow way I used to tear the wrapping paper! The title was always a surprise!

Charlotte's Web

Hans Brinkler or the Silver Skates

Now We are Six (Jonathan got this book and I remember thinking, “Hah! I'm eight!” Now who's bragging about being older?)

Huckleberry Finn

Tom Sawyer

Little House on the Prairie
Alice in Wonderland
The Velveteen Rabbit

Winnie the Pooh

There were never any junk-food books, no Berenstein Bears or other lightweights. Georgia always picked the really good ones, the classics.

Books propelled us into the woods, to “live off the land,” which Joey tried when he was about ten years old. He cooked his own gelatinous goose-berry bread with unpalatable green berries. We had pity on him and without disturbing his pride, left some fried chicken on the picnic table, which disappeared when we weren't looking.

We built life-sized log cabins in the woods with real, A-framed roofs. The engineering for the entrance was suspect; we dug a hole under the structure, which proved to be unfortunate, since the first night we slept in it, it rained. The next morning, surprise!

We learned sympathy for spiders and started looking differently at pigs. We learned that roller skates are not the only kind of skates there are. We learned that puffing on corn cob pipes like the one Huckleberry Finn sported, when it is filled with dried oak leaves, will prevent a young girl from ever, ever wanting to smoke. We learned that imagination can take you on long road trips to all kinds of places.

I feel that I knew Georgia more on paper than I did as a real person. I felt connected to her in books and in the printed photographs of vacations we had together.

Geography dictated a certain unattainability and whenever we did all come together, she was one of the Mamas and we kids were all out somewhere searching for arrowheads or fossils.

Strangely, the teeming family orb has progressed through the years (okay, we've aged) so that now we kids are the mamas and the daddys. As a Mama, I have tried over the years to be like Georgia. I have tried to give the little ones in my family new worlds and new adventures.

Matthew and Rebecca ended up with many of the same titles that Georgia gave me. I have always remembered the joy that came in Georgia's packages and, even though there were times that the little ones said, “I know what it is already; it's a book,” I wanted to extend to them the joys of my childhood. I did give one or two gifts that took a really long time to mature. Rebecca got To Kill a Mockingbird when she was four. In my defense, I couldn't wait, Georgia! I couldn't wait! I made up for it the next time, though, with Shel Silverstein.

In preparing for this service, I've had Georgia on my mind a lot lately. I've been thinking about that name. Farmer.

Back in Spies, North Carolina, when I could have somersaulted one thousand times before reaching the end of a row of corn, I dreamed of a little house on the prairie (though if I'd really been able to escape there, I'd have still been in a row of corn!).

Back in the okra patch, wearing a pair of socks up to my shoulders (they were on my arms, silly!), I dreamed of sitting on the hearth in Binghamton, New York, with Jamey, Teddy, and Stephanie.

I dreamed of other worlds where children were some shade of blond, where the boys wore lederhosen (okay, so it's possible that it happened only once, for the camera, and quite possibly became a source of a little bit of embarrassment in teenage years) and all three kids with perfect hair sat in a row.

So. Back to the meaning of Georgia's name. What is a farmer? One who cultivates, one who plans ahead, puts things in orderly rows, removes the weeds when necessary, remembers that things don't grow if you don't water them, and one who reaps the benefits of hard work. That's a farmer.

If Georgia was anything, it was a planner and an organizer. Every time we had a family reunion, she always had treats planned, events, sleeping arrangements and all kinds of meals planned. She had packets of crayons, fun things, and activities for the kids. She had everything in a row. We never forgot that.

I've been thinking that the other meanings I proposed for the name, Georgia, are actually farmer-like. There's the gift of hospitality. If you've ever spent much time with farmers you know that their table in summer is laden with fresh everything. “Eat! Eat!” is what they say. “Take these tomatoes so I don't have to can them!” “Here's a mess of green beans. Go ahead, take them!” They exude hospitality.

And what about “One Who Takes Road Trips Instead of Flying”? Farmers usually drive to get where they're going. They do not fly. I haven't actually researched this at all. But I've been behind enough tractors on my way to work that I know it to be true. With their triangular fluorescent red “I'm a tractor” sign on the back, they take in the scenic route, they enjoy the journey, and they make it adventurous.

I've changed my mind. You don't have to grow corn in order to be a farmer.

Thank you, Georgia, for the many fine gifts you gave me. I still think of you when I sit outside of a summer afternoon in the humid air with a book that smells like Going Somewhere.

Happy Trails,

Renee Britt
July 3, 2010