Category Archives: Memory

Memory

Remembering Titi Ernie

My aunt’s first name is Ernestina, but I always called her Titi Ernie, a term of endearment I used since I was a small child instead of Tia. She is my mother’s sister, two years younger, the middle daughter of their parents who emigrated to the U.S. from the Portuguese island of Madeira. 

She left us May 31, just months shy of her 99th birthday. That is the photo of her that ran with her obituary.

At her wake Thursday, I shared a few memories, and now I will do that with you.

Titi Ernie was only four feet ten inches tall, so it was always a milestone when my siblings and I were the same height or taller. My own children celebrated that accomplishment.

She and Uncle Louis, and their two sons, Louis and Michael, lived next door to my grandmother Angela, or Avó, their homes separated by a large field that used to contain gardens. We visited them nearly every weekend it seemed, playing with our cousins, mostly Louis for me, since we were only born a month apart. In the summer, we stopped at the ocean-side cottage they owned after spending a full day at the beach.

Titi Ernie was always a gracious and kind person who welcomed us into her home. She remembered us at Christmas and birthdays with cash in a card. Recently, my children, now adults, recalled fondly the pineapple cream puffs she served them, playing on the rocky shoreline of the cottage, and her collection of penguins. I had to remind them to call her Titi Ernie and not Aunt Titi Ernie.

Later in life, when I had moved far away, I tried to visit Titi Ernie when I could, often accompanied by my mother. The sisters were very close.

There is much more I could say about Titi Ernie, but I want to tell you a memory I shared at her wake that no one else knew. I had just graduated from high school and was heading that fall to a state college thanks to the scholarships I received. I was the first of my father’s family to attend college and tied for first with Louis on my mother’s. I was going to major in English because secretly I wanted to be a writer. By the way, neither Titi Ernie or my mother graduated from high school. They were forced to drop out to work in a textile mill or to mind the house so my grandmother could work instead.

That summer, Titi Ernie asked me to tutor my cousin Michael. It was either in French or English, I can’t recall. But I walked to their home or got a ride. I only came a few times. But later that summer, Titi Ernie surprised me with the gift of a new typewriter. I recall it had a light blue plastic cover. The significance of that gift is important because I didn’t have a typewriter to take to college.

I kept that typewriter for many years after I graduated. I even used it when I was a rookie reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, as the correspondent for the hilltown where I lived, Worthington. I wrote my story on that machine then drove it to the newsroom in Northampton for someone else to type into the system. That ended soon when I was given a laptop that transmitted the story via a cord plugged into the phone jack.

I no longer have that typewriter, but I do the memory of that gift and the thoughtfulness of my Titi Ernie.

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Memory

The Last Doll

As I recall, it was a few weeks before Christmas when my mother asked me what I wanted as we rode a department store’s escalator. I was 12, many years past believing in Santa Claus. My childhood was slipping away and I felt unsure what would happen next.

My eyes searched the store from the escalator’s vantage point. I pointed toward a boxed doll positioned on a shelf high above the store’s counters. The doll was a couple of feet tall and wearing a blue ball gown of taffeta and satin. Her hair was blond.

“I’d like that doll,” I said.

My mother was doubtful. “Are you sure?” she asked.

I said yes, and then later wished I had asked for something else. But my busy mother was relieved to get that chore out of the way.

As we approached Christmas morning, I was miserable. I felt the same way when I unwrapped my gift and stared into the doll’s blue glass eyes. Her skin was made of a synthetic rubber to make it feel like it was real, sort of, if the doll were a corpse. Blonde and blue-eyed, she looked like no one in my dark-haired Portuguese family. My guess is she was supposed to be a teenager at the prom.

I had other dolls, and even a Barbie. I named this one Veronica. She sat on my bed and got played with a bit. She was not my favorite.

My parents held onto Veronica in their attic after I grew up and moved away. One time as an adult, I brought the doll back for my daughters, but they were not interested in her either. By then, one of my younger sisters had chopped off her hair unevenly and the blue gown was raggedy. Her limbs were bent in a bow as if they had atrophied. Her shoes, sparkly high heels I recall, and underpants were long gone. 

Eventually, I tossed her out.

I learned a lesson that year. Ask for what you really want. But perhaps at that time in my life, at age 12, what I wanted was finality.

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Hypnotism, Memory

Confessions of a Teenage Hypnotist

I will admit I was a socially awkward teenager. My solution to becoming a popular one was to learn hypnotism, and while the end result didn’t make that happen, it was an interesting experience. Plus, it had an unexpected benefit in college. Read on.

To backtrack, I lived a very sheltered life as a kid, which looking back meant I read a lot, used my imagination, and got good grades in school. But I never had a boyfriend although I did have my crushes. I was never part of the so-called in-crowd or even invited to a party. I had to wrangle a date for the junior and senior proms. (Yes, that’s me dolled up for my Junior Prom. I got to go thanks to one of my best friends’ brother.) I did have close friends I remember fondly, but truthfully, they were outsiders like me.

At our town’s Millicent Library, I discovered a book that instructed the reader how to perform hypnosis. Don’t ask me the title. It was a long time ago. But my hope was that it would improve my standing in high school. 

I needed a willing subject to practice hypnotism. So I enlisted my kid sister, who was seven years younger and a willing participant.

Upstairs in our bedroom, I swung a shiny, golden pendant in front of her face. I spoke those oh-familiar commands in a sotto voce, willing her to go to sleep, a deep sleep. Her eyes indeed got heavy. 

Yes, it worked. My sister did go under.

I even tested my sister to see if she was faking, but she wasn’t. We went through the usual tricks you see on stage, like making her believe she was drinking water when she wasn’t or that she felt hot or cold. Remarkable.

A couple of times, I took the experiment further. I was inspired by the story of the Irish woman, Bridey Murphy, who delved into her past lives when she was hypnotized. So, I asked my sister to tell me about previous life experiences. We went back a few. My sister wasn’t rich or famous in any of them, but she told me enough details so I believed she was being genuine.

I hypnotized her a few times and dropped the experiment. Frankly, our parents wouldn’t have been happy if they knew what I was doing.

Ah, but the story isn’t over. Years later, when I was a sophomore in college, I got stuck taking philosophy 101 because it was general requirement. Ugh, I quickly realized I didn’t have a head for that kind of thinking. I felt I was in big trouble.

But then one day in class, the professor started talking about the possibility of reincarnation. Finally, here was something I got. I raised my hand.

I told the prof about hypnotizing my sister and taking her to past lives. He was not only interested, he stopped me after class. He told me if I gave a lecture about my experience to his classes, I could skip all of the exams and papers. I would get an A for the course.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and certainly the easiest A that I ever earned.

There have been a few times when friends heard about this story that they wanted me to hypnotize them. Each was a failed attempt, however. Perhaps the willing subjects didn’t believe I could do it or unlike my kid sister, they didn’t trust me.

And now that I have your attention, I want to note this bookish girl became a bookish woman. During the past several months my publisher darkstroke books has released two: Following the Lead, no. 6 in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, and The Sacred Dog, a dark thriller set in my favorite setting, rural New England. Here are the links: https://mybook.to/followingthelead and https://mybook.to/thesacreddog

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