~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Months prior to my 80th birthday party, my sister wrote a fable for me because I was in a major decline. I had told her I felt physically awful (rheumatoid arthritis); mentally feeble (where is my phone, my purse, my car key? Oh, locked in the car!). And I was tired all the time, uninterested in politics (one of my favorite pastimes), and uncapable of returning calls or texts and never even looking at my emails. So, Dee sat down and dashed off a touching, hilarious mythical story to cheer me up.
It was read at my 80th birthday party a couple of weeks ago, by my gone husband’s best friend Danny, to tears and laughter from family and friends. And my editor Tori okayed my using it in a column even though it’s longer than most columns.
Here it is, by Denise O’Brien Van Lewis — “Collie Annie of the Collie Annies”
Once upon a time, a peaceful group of people called the Collie Annies lived together in a lush forest glade somewhere on earth.
Their leader, a tall and beautiful brown-eyed, brown-haired woman named Collie Annie, directed them in their daily lives in a very pleasant way. There was never argument, let alone conflict. She was known as Collie Annie of the Collie Annies.
At the edge of their forest glade, there were meadows where sunlight allowed the growth of their gardens. They raised coffee for lattes, wheat for beer and bread and many varieties of leafy greens. So, their glade must have been in the earth’s northern hemisphere. . . wheat and those leafy greens need cold a few months of the year.
One autumn, a stranger — a tall and tawny fellow — appeared in a little boat, rowing up to the glade on the small clear stream that provided the Collie Annies with sweet water.
He leapt from his canoe, waded to shore and was greeted by the Collie Annies. They were happy to have a visitor, for few other humans ever found their way to the verdant place where they lived.
This fellow, whose name the Annies discovered was Jim, was a polite visitor, and brought them a few gifts –cigarettes, poker chips, sugar for their coffee and something called Tullamore Dew, which, when drunk, loosened their tongues and allowed them to respond to Jim with their own stories as he entertained them with his witty and amazing tales. How they all laughed and treasured his stories, and theirs.
He entertained the Collies for months, regaling them with tales of growing up where the snow flies and summers are spent in great manmade pools of blue-green water, and where he played strange games that he called “football” and “baseball.” And then he regaled them with yarns about his years as a sailor on the earth’s giant seas. It took him a few days to explain exactly what seas are.
During this early time in his visit, Collie Annie observed and took his measure. He was very nice to look at. He told a good story. He laughed often. He knew a lot about the world, and its people and their different ways. One evening, as she played her xylophone for Collie Annies (something she did often), she realized that he was captivated by the music. Or, by her. Yes. By her, she decided.
Of course, Collie Annie had been enthralled by him for . . . for quite a while. He was a rare storyteller, an adept mimic, and he had a kindly way about him, often drawing the youngsters in the band to his side, where he gently teased them, letting them know that he liked them very much. They adored him, as did the Collie Annies’ dogs.
Well, you know the lovely end of this tale. The leader Collie Annie took Jim as her husband, much to the approval of her fellow Collie Annies. He adored her and listened to her and never laughed when one of her legendary chocolate pies flopped. The pies were the Collie Annies’ favorite dessert, and Jim’s, too. Eventually, the couple became the parents of two little people, a boy named Jimmy, who grew up to be so like his mother, intelligent, kind and thoughtful of others, a lover of stories; and a girl named Aubry (now where did that name come from? It wasn’t to be found in the Collie Annies’ oral tradition, but its sound was beautiful) who took after her father in looks (and she had her mother’s wide smile) and in story-telling talents; she was lovely, small and tawny, clever and quick-witted, athletic. Her father told her she could be something called a “cheerleader,” which, of course, took days of explanation.
After many years of pleasant and happy days – and a few stormy ones, which were always soon calmed – the Collie Annies were forced to mourn the death of the man named Jim. Collie Annie herself had prepared for his death, knowing him so well. She continued to lead the Collie Annies – her children had flown away to other forest glades, or, maybe, even other lands. Her people revered her and her gentle and inspirational ways. When she seemed downcast and lonely, they tried to cheer her, which usually worked because she was a person who thought always of others, and she smiled her wide smile and went on with her business because she couldn’t bear to think her friends were troubled by her gloom. In fact, in her very being, she always was lighthearted, and her occasional bouts of melancholy evaporated mysteriously, letting rays of sunlight shine upon and through her.
She lives on in the hearts of her children and their children and in the heart of the sailor who is sailing the heavenly starred seas, and, in the lore of the Collie Annies in their florist glade.
So cool for me to have a sister who can write such a tale, the most hilarious part of it being the playing of the xylophone. In second grade, Miss Erickson allowed us to put on a Ted Mack Amateur Hour. I think Mack was a radio or TV guy; I’m not sure because we didn’t have a TV yet and I did know about him. Ted Mack was played by my long-in-the-future intended, and I was a contestant who played the xylophone. I won. That’s when my casual schoolyard love of Jimmy, AKA Ted Mack, solidified, and although it took a few years, we ended up together – the MC and the xylophonist.
