My niece Gina flanked by her grandmother Dorothy, mother Debby, sister Sarah, and grandmother Maebelle.
My mother was a scene stealer. I don’t say that in a mean way. It was just a fact we all understood: She loved to be the center of attention. Still, there are times when it’s socially imperative to give up the spotlight to someone else, and it was always interesting to watch her inner Spotlight Hog struggle with her Doting Parent/Grandparent.
Let’s just say the Spotlight Hog is an awesome beast who can rarely be subdued.
No doubt my awareness of the Spotlight Hog made me develop an almost-phobic desire not to be the center of attention. There’s nothing that makes me squirmier than events like Christmas and birthdays when people watch me open presents. While my mother loved to have people sitting around the kitchen table when she cooked, I drive people and their staring eyes out of my kitchen with snarls and threats of bodily harm. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of telling a story, I suddenly realize people are listening and I have an interior meltdown.
All this is the buildup for shamelessly stealing Gina’s moment ONE MORE TIME, because…it’s my blog.
Gina’s wedding day was beautiful. There were so many friends and family members there for her. I love gatherings when I can see my nieces and nephews with their parents and grandparents, because that doesn’t happen often with families fractured by divorce and geographic distance. And it’s so great when it’s because of a wedding, birthday, anniversary, or holiday instead of illness or a funeral (although we generally tell the same stories and laugh our way through those, too).
I was wandering around shooting photos and watching everyone interact as they got ready (material!), then I went outside the church, where I promptly took a tumble down some cement stairs. I’m not exactly sure how that happened, but I remember Gina’s dad catching my head so it wouldn’t hit the ground, and I remember being all frantic about my camera. Other than the standard embarrassment of falling, some abrasions on my hands, and a few aches and pains, I mostly just wanted everyone to pretend it didn’t happen.
So I was horrified when Gina rushed up to me just before the wedding and said, “Aunt Becky, are you okay? I heard you fell down the stairs!”
AAAIIIIIEEEE. I felt like the Spotlight Hog!
“I’m fine,” I assured her.
“I’m fine,” I kept saying to everyone else.
“I’m fine,” I muttered at the reception later, while I sat at a table and tried to be invisible.
Fortunately there was lots of noisy dancing and talking and laughing–and that was just my mother.
I kid!
I was sitting at a table ignoring something edible in front of me, unaware that my sister’s friend Dottie, who’s an RN, was watching me, until she said to Tom, “You need to take her to the emergency room. Now.” And it was true, because by the time we got there, I was in intense pain. An x-ray later, it was determined that my arm was broken.
Fortunately, we’d left the reception so quietly, and so few people there actually knew Gina even had an Aunt Becky, none of the attention that was rightfully hers shifted to me. And I think the Spotlight Hog did all right, too.
“Open Range”
