"On what slender threads
do life and fortune hang."
-- Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
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| Spider 5-7-14 |
"See him lying there with broken bones
And a child's smile on a man full grown
If he'd gone just another inch by now he would be dead
At times a life can hang by such a slender thread."
-- Kate Wolf, "Slender Thread"
I had this goofy great aunt named Marian. She was my Dad's aunt. My Grandpa's sister.
Marian was plain and quiet, reserved and a little mysterious, but always kind. We jokingly called her "Aunt Magenta" because she once wore an uncharacteristically loud pink blouse to some family thing or another -- possibly a funeral -- and the name stuck. (In our family, you only have to do a thing once to earn a lifelong brand for it.)
I never got to know Aunt Marian very well. She just kind of nibbled around the edges of our sparse extended family.
I think maybe Marian was at my wedding. I can't remember for sure. She's not in any of the pictures. I do know her daughter got pretty trashed at the reception and kept grabbing a microphone and crooning "Amore! Amore!"
I wish I'd taken the time to get to know Aunt Marian better. If I had a chance to do it over again, I'd want to ask her a few questions, and I'd want to say a few things to her. Mostly, I'd want to thank this shy, unassuming woman whose last name I can't even remember. Because as it turns out, Aunt Marian was a brave, quick-thinking heroine who literally saved my life before I was even born.
I was cleaning out my workspace over the weekend and came across a faded, cardboard tube containing a printout of my hometown newspaper from Jan. 14, 1927. It's been gathering dust on the top of my bookshelf for years. I forgot I even had it.
In the newspaper is the story of a man named Howard Kunkle who came home drunk and in a jealous rage one afternoon toting a loaded revolver. Kunkle shot and killed his wife and seriously wounded a neighbor during a 2-hour shootout and standoff during which police armed with machine guns unloaded some 3,000 rounds of ammunition along with tear gas bombs into the man's house before he ultimately shot and killed himself. According to the extremely graphic eyewitness accounts of the story, the woman's 14-year-old daughter was in the room when Kunkle -- her stepfather -- started shooting. She shoved her little brother, 11-year-old Franklin, out of the room just as bullets began to fly, but not before witnessing Kunkle fatally shoot her mother and a neighbor.
The 14-year-old girl's name was Marian.
Her little brother grew up to be my grandfather.
I remember my Dad adding a wrinkle that the newspaper left out -- that my grandfather was carrying a metal lunch pail that actually deflected a bullet that might have killed him. He'd say "If it wasn't for that lunch box, none of you would be here right now."
With all due respect to the lunch box, I think the credit should go to Aunt Marian.
Lunch pail or no lunch pail, all I know is that I wouldn't be sitting here wondering about it or about how close my grandfather's brush with death was if Aunt Marian hadn't pushed him when she did.
My great grandmother died that day, with two bullets in her breast and one in her back.
But thanks to Aunt Marian, my grandfather escaped with his life, and my father's life, and my life, and my children's lives.
I spent time yesterday retyping the story into my computer. The print is deteriorating, fading away, so I wanted to get it down before time renders it completely illegible.
I never asked Aunt Marian or my grandfather any questions about what happened that day because I didn't know about it. No one talked about it. They kept it a secret, from me anyway. Maybe they were embarrassed, ashamed about the sordidness of their past. More likely, it was simply too raw and painful a memory and was best left alone. I can respect that. But I'm also glad I finally learned about it, that my dad made the effort to secure a copy of the newspaper and that he shared it with me.
I will share it with my boys.
I want them to know about the quiet heroine in the magenta blouse who had the quick reflexes and bravery to stand in the path of flying bullets and rescue four future generations, including theirs, with a single well-timed shove.
I think it's a good thing for them to know how slender a thread their lives hang on.
And no pressure, but if either of them ever has a daughter, I think it might be a good thing to name her Marian.
