Aunt Lue

RIP Mrs. Lue Evelyn Pearson-Gunter.

RIP Auntie.
I remember you like the smell of first-grade mornings—coffee, engine oil, and faint schoolbook glue—driving me to school in that featherweight, light blue car. You were always a few degrees cooler than the moment, always five steps ahead. Later, you ran the high school girls’ basketball team with an intensity that scorched the sidelines. Barbara McFadden was your star—and yes, she was also my secret universe. I traveled on that school bus to every game with you, except for the one occasion when illness kept me, like a knight journey to Camelot, resting in Barbara McFadden's lap as though the world held nothing piercing than the innocence of a-love struck young boy.

Your stories nested within theirs, and every one of them was a little priceless epic. Like that rocking horse—you and Uncle’s gift—solid wood, worn paint, and mine. I rode it hard, like I was galloping through dimensions.

And the GI Joes! One every Christmas, each fresh from the battlefield of your love. I didn’t know then you were building a collection I wasn’t supposed to wear out. Especially that one Joe who talked—who rattled off his serial number like a soldier holding the line, and would bellow “Hit the dirt!” like he meant it. He was all grit and echo and oddly comforting plastic.
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Now your light is a constellation, an eternal thread weaving me forward. I believe—I know—you’re with them: with my rock, our beloved John, and Queen.
And when Aretha sings “Until You Come Back to Me,” I swear I hear your voice humming through the melody, like a promise stitched into vinyl.

Charles with GI Joe, Grandpa John and Grandma Queen, Christmas at Aunt Lue's Mother-in-law house, Mrs. Gunter, 1970s.