Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.
If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by  Lee and can be found here.

This week's words are:

1. comedy

2. shadows

3. loss

4. rainbow

5. emotional

6. heart

and/or:

1. contradictions

2. sensitive

3. legendary

4. engage

5. forever

6. never-ending

Here is my story:

The shadows filling my heart since the loss of my parents seemed like they would hang around forever.

I’d been moping around my Great Aunt Millie’s huge house since the funeral, over two months ago now and really didn’t want to go back out into the world where strangers would tut-tut over me, exclaiming how unfortunate I now was, an orphan and only ten, whatever will you do with her Millie? Great Aunt Millie’s answer usually contained the words boarding school, not a huge surprise since Great Aunt Millie was close to seventy, had never married and probably disliked children until they’d been through a “good Swiss Finishing School” and could hold a proper conversation.

Great Aunt Millie was fond of telling people how overly emotional I seemed and that I showed “sensitive” tendencies declaring that “after all, her mother was a psychic, you know, and quite well known.”

One day when I had been wandering around Great Aunt Millie’s rose garden, she called to me from the side verandah. “Lexie! Come here dear. There’s a parcel arrived and it has your name on it.”

I was a little astonished that she’d called me Lexie, up until now she had preferred the more formal Alexandra. I hurried to where she was waiting and we both went into the front parlor where a large cardboard box stood. I opened the letter attached to it and big black letters almost jumped off the page at me. “Lexie,” it said. “I’ve sent you a little something to carry with you on the train. You’re coming to visit with me for a while. Millie has been telling me you seem a bit lonely, so she’ll put you on a train tomorrow and I’ll collect you at the other end. Love, Uncle Finn.”

I turned to Great Aunt Millie, “I’m going away? You’re sending me away?” My bottom lip trembled in the way I knew meant tears would soon follow. Great Aunt Millie said, “only for a while, to help you cheer up again maybe, Uncle Finn has a smaller house with a lot more child friendly things in it, he’s a doctor in a small village with lots of children around, he thinks being with him will help you engage more with real life. Why don’t you open the box now? See what’s inside?”

“It’s a big box,” I said, “Uncle Finn said it was a ‘little’ something.” I tore open one end of the box and tipped it up gently so the contents could slide out. It was a unicorn! A rainbow coloured plush unicorn as high as my waist! I loved it immediately and hugged it to myself as Great Aunt Millie informed me that the upstairs maid, Constance, had been busily packing most of my clothes that morning ready for the trip and I should now go up to my room to select the outfit I would wear on the train.

I’d never met my Uncle Finn, although I had heard stories from my parents when I was little. Apparently he was legendary in the next county where his practice was, knowing everything there was to know about children and what made them tick. I began to look forward to meeting him.

The train trip was uneventful, Constance had travelled with me and would return that same day as the station at Glenmorran was at the end of the line. The train would rest, refuel and load passengers for the return trip within a few hours. About five minutes after getting off the train, I’d been enveloped in a bear hug by a large man with a great deal of wavy red hair. He put me down and put out his hand for shaking, as a proper greeting. “Lexie, I’m very pleased to finally meet you. I’m your Uncle Finn. Finnegan Flannagan, that’s me.”

I’d waved goodbye to Constance as we left the station in Uncle Finn’s big old Volvo, named Bessie.

That was several years ago and since then, my life has been a never-ending comedy of contradictions as I learned to do things the rough-and-tumble village way instead of the “good-finishing-school” method preferred by Great Aunt Millie in the city. I met every village child within a week and their families too, was accepted easily in every home, rebuffed by none and gifted a tiny cocker spaniel puppy by the girl who was to become my lifelong friend.

I never did go back to Great Aunt Millie and not to a boarding school either. Uncle Finn didn’t agree with such nonsense. “If a child has a good family around them, why send them away?” he’d say. “Kids learn a lot better in a loving home, that’s for sure.”