honey
Honey
It was late August of 2004. I was still getting over my epic drive from Denver, even though it had already been three days past; it was still fresh. I remember laying on the floor of my parents TV room when we got the call that my grandmother had been in a car accident. I heard my mother hand the phone to my dad and say “its your sister, I think there’s something wrong” when I heard him say “oh my goodness” I knew. Honey was gone.
Honey was the heart of our family. Everything revolved around her because she held us all together. She was the glue that kept us all close. And she was one of the main reasons that I decided not to go back to Denver. At that point I was still with The Dreamer, naively thinking that we could fix our relationship somehow, and still working remotely for my boss in Denver thinking that I may return after a couple weeks. When Honey died, I made my decision to leave The Dreamer, and quit my job. She would have given me that advice, had I confided in her; so in a way Honey was my guide.
There is a tradition in my family; at least for the female side of the family, every Labor Day weekend we all gather together for a few days to relax and catch up. That was my first year at what we now fondly call “Estrogen Fest”. There was a huge emptiness where Honey would have been, but we used that time to laugh and talk about Honey stories and remember her lovingly. We were all dramatically saddened that she wasn’t there, but we knew she would have wanted us to have a great time.
We used the weekend to help clear out Honey’s house; it needed to be put up for sale. Tears were shed as we emptied the house; I think each one of us had our own little breakdown that day. It was so final. The house that we all grew up in just wasn’t the same. My cousins and my aunts and Sarah and I all had our individual memories of Honeys house, but one story in particular entwined us all in similar ways. I’ve written about it before, but I thought it appropriate to tell the story again of The Red Room.
The Red Room was the room that all of the grandchildren would stay in when we visited. Remembering that this was my grandmother’s house, and it had been for at least 40 years- it was a time capsule from the 1960’s in there. The interior décor hardly changed over the years, and that is what made it so endearing to us all. The Red Room was so named because of the red corduroy covered trundle bed, and red floral curtains among other red decorative accent pieces in the tiny room. Nothing ever changed in that room, the desk always had the same picture frames, the same typewriter etc, but the most interesting thing on that desk in the red room was a small ceramic statue of Cupid holding a big red heart.
We called him the Caveman though, because as children we didn’t really have a grasp of what a cupid should look like. That cupid looked like a caveman. As we were all cleaning out Honeys’ house that Labor Day weekend, we found ourselves crowding into the Red Room to get one last look at the infamous caveman; still on the desk, still holding that heart.
If you knew Honey, you knew she had a wicked sense of humor. That innocent looking Cupid on the desk in the room that all of us slept in at one time or another, had a secret but we all knew what he was hiding. We couldn’t look at that little statue without cracking a smile because he was to all of us, our first glimpse of a penis. You thought this was going to be a sad story didn’t you? Under that heart he had been holding so enthusiastically all these years was a very large boner! I remember accidentally knocking the heart off its perch once when I was a child and staring at that thing for hours in bewilderment. I always thought I was the only one who knew his secret, but we all knew. Some of us passed on his secret to cousins or sisters, but none of us had told our parents. My aunt never knew after all these years that the heart was removable; she was very surprised when we all showed her. We discovered Honeys initials on the bottom of the caveman, my grandmother painted it!
When it came time to leave the caveman behind, and even though none of us really wanted to take him home with us, we all secretly wanted him to stay in the family. I volunteered to take him for a year on the condition that someone else would take him after that. And so another tradition was born.
Now every “Estrogen Fest” the caveman is passed on to a new owner, we even have a special little ceremony to commemorate it. There are strict rules that we must abide by and the caveman has to go with its owner to at least two interesting places with photos for proof. I had him for a year and then he was passed on to my sister who had him for a year. Caveman now resides in Mart, TX with my second cousin.
I have the pictures from Estrogen Fest ‘06 up. You can see the infamous caveman, with and without his heart for your enjoyment. It was a blast again, and will continue to be a wonderful tradition. Honey would have loved to see our new tradition; she is still a big part of us.
It was late August of 2004. I was still getting over my epic drive from Denver, even though it had already been three days past; it was still fresh. I remember laying on the floor of my parents TV room when we got the call that my grandmother had been in a car accident. I heard my mother hand the phone to my dad and say “its your sister, I think there’s something wrong” when I heard him say “oh my goodness” I knew. Honey was gone.
Honey was the heart of our family. Everything revolved around her because she held us all together. She was the glue that kept us all close. And she was one of the main reasons that I decided not to go back to Denver. At that point I was still with The Dreamer, naively thinking that we could fix our relationship somehow, and still working remotely for my boss in Denver thinking that I may return after a couple weeks. When Honey died, I made my decision to leave The Dreamer, and quit my job. She would have given me that advice, had I confided in her; so in a way Honey was my guide.
There is a tradition in my family; at least for the female side of the family, every Labor Day weekend we all gather together for a few days to relax and catch up. That was my first year at what we now fondly call “Estrogen Fest”. There was a huge emptiness where Honey would have been, but we used that time to laugh and talk about Honey stories and remember her lovingly. We were all dramatically saddened that she wasn’t there, but we knew she would have wanted us to have a great time.
We used the weekend to help clear out Honey’s house; it needed to be put up for sale. Tears were shed as we emptied the house; I think each one of us had our own little breakdown that day. It was so final. The house that we all grew up in just wasn’t the same. My cousins and my aunts and Sarah and I all had our individual memories of Honeys house, but one story in particular entwined us all in similar ways. I’ve written about it before, but I thought it appropriate to tell the story again of The Red Room.
The Red Room was the room that all of the grandchildren would stay in when we visited. Remembering that this was my grandmother’s house, and it had been for at least 40 years- it was a time capsule from the 1960’s in there. The interior décor hardly changed over the years, and that is what made it so endearing to us all. The Red Room was so named because of the red corduroy covered trundle bed, and red floral curtains among other red decorative accent pieces in the tiny room. Nothing ever changed in that room, the desk always had the same picture frames, the same typewriter etc, but the most interesting thing on that desk in the red room was a small ceramic statue of Cupid holding a big red heart.
We called him the Caveman though, because as children we didn’t really have a grasp of what a cupid should look like. That cupid looked like a caveman. As we were all cleaning out Honeys’ house that Labor Day weekend, we found ourselves crowding into the Red Room to get one last look at the infamous caveman; still on the desk, still holding that heart.
If you knew Honey, you knew she had a wicked sense of humor. That innocent looking Cupid on the desk in the room that all of us slept in at one time or another, had a secret but we all knew what he was hiding. We couldn’t look at that little statue without cracking a smile because he was to all of us, our first glimpse of a penis. You thought this was going to be a sad story didn’t you? Under that heart he had been holding so enthusiastically all these years was a very large boner! I remember accidentally knocking the heart off its perch once when I was a child and staring at that thing for hours in bewilderment. I always thought I was the only one who knew his secret, but we all knew. Some of us passed on his secret to cousins or sisters, but none of us had told our parents. My aunt never knew after all these years that the heart was removable; she was very surprised when we all showed her. We discovered Honeys initials on the bottom of the caveman, my grandmother painted it!
When it came time to leave the caveman behind, and even though none of us really wanted to take him home with us, we all secretly wanted him to stay in the family. I volunteered to take him for a year on the condition that someone else would take him after that. And so another tradition was born.
Now every “Estrogen Fest” the caveman is passed on to a new owner, we even have a special little ceremony to commemorate it. There are strict rules that we must abide by and the caveman has to go with its owner to at least two interesting places with photos for proof. I had him for a year and then he was passed on to my sister who had him for a year. Caveman now resides in Mart, TX with my second cousin.
I have the pictures from Estrogen Fest ‘06 up. You can see the infamous caveman, with and without his heart for your enjoyment. It was a blast again, and will continue to be a wonderful tradition. Honey would have loved to see our new tradition; she is still a big part of us.
posted by Jenni at
1:43 PM
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