A few
days ago, my friend of five & a half decades, Sue Ann McLauchlan Faulkner,
posted about the color purple. The mix
of red & blue color, not the wonderful novel by Alice Walker, the amazing
film by Stephen Spielberg or the Tony award winning musical on Broadway.
I
told her I had a story about the color purple.
During
one of the times I lost my mind in my youth & got married when I was not
even a month old 20-year-old, I shared a young niece with my husband. I think she was four when we got married
& one of two flower girls at our wedding.
She
was fiercely possessive of her uncle – calling him “My Donnie.” She called her parents by their first names,
because that was how they addressed one another when my brother-in-law was not
referring to his wife as “Clyde.”
Because
she was blue eyed & blonde haired like her beloved Donnie & her parents
had much darker hair & eyes, she insisted that Donnie was her real daddy.
The
first time I met this little girl, she was in her purple room. My sister-in-law was a talented interior
decorator & her only child’s favorite color was purple.
My
future niece crossed her four year old arms over her chest & confronted me:
Do you like
frogs? I like frogs.
When
I assured her that I was very fond of frogs, she uncrossed her arms &
declared, without words, a truce between her fiercest rival for her beloved
uncle’s attention.
At
some point, after our marriage, my brother-in-law presented his wife Clyde with
the deed to a new house, a house she had never seen. Using her
natural & cultivated talent, she turned it into a showpiece.
With
a purple room for their daughter.
When
our niece was six or seven, her mother Clyde’s talents were displayed in a
national magazine – “Better Homes & Gardens.” Her daughter’s purple room was not part of
the photo shoot.
My
niece was furious – a precocious child (to say the least), she wanted her space
in a magazine shoot. Her mother
explained that if she wanted her bedroom to be in a magazine, she would need to
consent to a different color theme.
I
suppose in the seventies, purple as a color theme was not an interior
decorator’s ideal.
My
niece consented to a change & sure enough, her bedroom was featured in
another magazine a few months later.
But
that precocious child had not given up on the color purple.
Not
long after Clyde created a stunning showpiece out of a dated house, my
brother-in-law went into partnership with & invested in some jewelers.
He was already a successful player into the
oil industry in a big way – investing in land oil rigs & reaping the profits. I am not sure if his new jewelry partners created the
Texas shaped belt buckle he wore – with a diamond marking the location of each of his
wells.
It
drew a lot of attention – where ever he went.
The
new partnership emphasized customizing Rolex watches. Lot’s of diamond bezels & custom faces
were involved. The jewelers made my
niece a necklace spelling out her name – with a diamond over the “i”. Like most adults who encountered the bright,
precocious little girl, the jewelers were fond of her. She was very charming, in a seven year old
way.
They
also had Rolex create a special child’s watch – with a purple face.
My
niece opened the gift, thanked the jewelers & asked, her enormous blue eyes
displaying disappointment & confusion:
Where’s my diamond bezel?
The precocious, privileged
child, who received so many Christmas gifts every year that every new Christmas
season her mother Clyde opened a closet piled with unused toys & games
& explained it was time to share with children who had very different Christmas
memories, grew up to be a lawyer like her father.
I always wonder if she still has
that watch with a purple face. And when
she got her first diamond bezel.
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